OF  THE. 

U N I VERS  ITY 
OF  ILLINOIS 

1887 


i 


THE 


CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

Jou«  gCectuvw 

ON 

WORK,  TRAFFIC,  WAR, 

AND 

THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND 


JOHN  RUSKIN,  M.A. 


And  indeed  it  should  have  been  of  gold,  had  not  Jupiter  been  so 
poor. — Aeistophanes  (. Phitus ) 


New  York: 

W.  L.  ALLISON  CO., 

Publishers. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE  I. 

PAGE. 

Work 27 

LECTURE  II. 

Traffic 81 

LECTURE  III. 

War 125 

LECTURE  IV. 

The  Future  of  England . 181 


Appendix. 


217 


PREFACE. 


Twenty  years  ago,  there  was  no  lovelier 
piece  of  lowland  scenery  in  South  England, 
nor  any  more  pathetic  in  the  world,  by  its  ex- 
pression of  sweet  human  character  and  life, 
than  that  immediately  bordering  on  the  sources 
of  the  Wandle,  and  including  the  lower  moors 
of  Addington,  and  the  villages  of  Beddington 
and  Carshalton,  with  all  their  pools  and 
streams.  No  clearer  or  diviner  waters  ever 
sang  with  constant  lips  of  the  hand  which 
“ giveth  rain  from  heaven  ; ” no  pastures  ever 
lightened  in  springtime  with  more  passionate 
blossoming ; no  sweeter  homes  ever  hallowed 
the  heart  of  the  passer-by  with  their  pride  of 
peaceful  gladness — fain-hidden — yet  full-con- 
fessed. The  place  remains,  or,  until  a few 
months  ago,  remained,  nearly  unchanged  in  its 
larger  features ; but,  with  deliberate  mind  I 
say,  that  I have  never  seen  anything  so  ghastly 


6 


PREFACE . 


in  its  inner  tragic  meaning, — not  in  Pisan 
Maremma, — not  by  Campagna  tomb, — not  by 
the  sand-isles  of  the  Torcellan  shore, — as  the 
slow  stealing  of  aspects  of  reckless,  indolent, 
animal  neglect,  over  the  delicate  sweetness  of 
that  English  scene  : nor  is  any  blasphemy  or 
impiety — any  frantic  saying  or  godless  thought 
— more  appalling  to  me,  using  the  best  power 
of  judgment  I have  to  discern  its  sense  and 
scope,  than  the  insolent  defilings  of  those 
springs  by  the  human  herds  that  drink  of 
them.  Just  where  the  welling  of  stainless 
water,  trembling  and  pure,  like  a body  of  light, 
enters  the  pool  of  Carshalton,  cutting  itself  a 
radiant  channel  down  to  the  gravel,  through 
warp  of  feathery  weeds,  all  waving,  which  it 
traverses  with  its  deep  threads  of  clearness, 
like  the  chalcedony  in  moss-agate,  starred  here 
and  there  with  white  grenouillette  ; just  in  the 
very  rush  and  murmur  of  the  first  spreading 
currents,  the  human  wretches  of  the  place  cast 
their  street  and  house  foulness ; heaps  of  dust 
and  slime,  and  broken  shreds  of  old  metal, 
and  rags  of  putrid  clothes ; they  having 
neither  energy  to  cart  it  away,  nor  decency 
enough  to  dig  it  into  the  ground,  thus  shed 
into  the  stream,  to  diffuse  what  venom  of  it 


PREFACE. 


7 


will  float  and  melt,  far  away,  in  all  places 
where  God  meant  those  waters  to  bring  joy 
and  health.  And,  in  a little  pool,  behind 
some  houses  farther  in  the  village,  where 
another  spring  rises,  the  shattered  stones  of 
the  well,  and  of  the  little  fretted  channel 
which  was  long  ago  built  and  traced  for  it  by 
gentler  hands,  lie  scattered,  each  from  each, 
under  a ragged  bank  of  mortar,  and  scoria, 
and  bricklayers’  refuse,  on  one  side,  which  the 
clean  water  nevertheless  chastises  to  purity ; 
but  it  cannot  conquer  the  dead  earth  beyond  ; 
and  there,  circled  and  coiled  under  festering 
scum,  the  stagnant  edge  of  the  pool  effaces 
itself  into  a slope  of  black  slime,  the  accumu- 
lation of  indolent  years.  Half  a dozen  men, 
with  one  day’s  work,  could  cleanse  those  pools, 
and  trim  the  flowers  about  their  banks,  and 
make  every  breath  of  summer  air  above  them 
rich  with  cool  balm  ; and  every  glittering  wave 
medicinal,  as  if  it  ran,  troubled  of  angels, 
from  the  porch  of  Bethesda.  But  that  day’s 
work  is  never  given,  nor  will  be ; nor  will  any 
joy  be  possible  to  heart  of  man,  for  evermore, 
about  those  wells  of  English  waters. 

When  I last  left  them,  I walked  up  slowly 
through  the  back  streets  of  Croydon,  from  the 


8 


PREFACE, . 


old  church  to  the  hospital ; and,  just  on  the 
left,  before  coming  up  to  the  crossing  of  the 
High  Street,  there  was  a new  public-house 
built.  And  the  front  of  it  was  built  in  so  wise 
manner,  that  a recess  of  two  feet  was  left 
below  its  front  windows,  between  them  and 
the  street-pavement — a recess  too  narrow  for 
any  possible  use  (for  even  if  it  had  been  occu- 
pied by  a seat,  as  in  old  time  it  might  have 
been,  everybody  walking  along  the  street 
would  have  fallen  over  the  legs  of  the  reposing 
wayfarers).  But,  by  way  of  making  this  two 
feet  depth  of  freehold  land  more  expressive  of 
the  dignity  of  an  establishment  for  the  sale  of 
spirituous  liquors,  it  was  fenced  from  the 
pavement  by  an  imposing  iron  railing,  having 
four  or  five  spearheads  to  the  yard  of  it,  and 
six  feet  high ; containing  as  much  iron  and 
iron-work,  indeed,  as  could  well  be  put  into 
the  space ; and  by  this  stately  arrangement, 
the  little  piece  of  dead  ground  within,  between 
wall  and  street,  became  a protective  receptacle 
of  refuse ; cigar  ends,  and  oyster  shells,  and 
the  like,  such  as  an  open-handed  English 
street-populace  habitually  scatters  from  its 
presence,  and  was  thus  left,  unsweepable  by 
any  ordinary  methods.  Now  the  iron  bars 


PREFACE . 


9 


which,  uselessly  (or  in  great  degree  worse  than 
uselessly),  enclosed  this  bit  of  ground,  and 
made  it  pestilent,  represented  a quantity  of 
work  which  would  have  cleansed  the  Carshal- 
ton  pools  three  times  over  ; — of  work,  partly 
cramped  and  deadly,  in  the  mine ; partly 
fierce  # and  exhaustive,  at  the  furnace,  partly 

* “ A fearful  occurrence  took  place  a few  days  since, 
near  Wolverhampton.  Thomas  Snape,  aged  nineteen, 
was  on  duty  as  the  ‘ keeper  ’ of  a blast  furnace  at 
Deepfield,  assisted  by  John  Gardner,  aged  eighteen, 
and  Joseph  Swift,  aged  thirty-seven.  The  furnace  con- 
tained four  tons  of  molten  iron,  and  an  equal  amount 
of  cinders,  and  ought  to  have  been  run  out  at  7.30 
p.  M.  But  Snape  and  his  mates,  engaged  in  talking 
and  drinking,  neglected  their  duty,  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  the  iron  rose  in  the  furnace  until  it  reached  a pipe 
wherein  water  was  contained.  Just  as  the  men  had 
stripped,  and  were  proceeding  to  tap  the  furnace,  the 
water  in  the  pipe,  converted  into  steam,  burst  down  its 
front  and  let  loose  on  them  the  molten  metal,  which 
instantaneously  consumed  Gardner;  Snape,  terribly 
burnt,  and  mad  with  pain,  leaped  into  the  canal  and 
then  ran  home  and  fell  dead  on  the  threshold ; Swift 
survived  to  reach  the  hospital,  where  he  died  too.” 

In  further  illustration  of  this  matter,  I beg  the 
reader  to  look  at  the  article  on  the  “ Decay  of  the 
English  Race,”  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  April  17,  of 
this  year;  and  at  the  articles  on  the  “ Report  of  the 
Thames  Commission,”  in  any  journals  of  the  same 
llate. 


io 


PREFACE . 


foolish  and  sedentary,  of  ill-taught  students 
making  bad  designs  : work  from  the  beginning 
to  the  last  fruits  of  it,  and  in  all  the  branches 
of  it,  venomous,  deathful,  and  miserable. 
Now,  how  did  it  come  to  pass  that  this  work 
was  done  instead  of  the  other ; that  the 
strength  and  life  of  the  English  operative  were 
spent  in  defiling  ground,  instead  of  redeeming 
it ; and  in  producing  an  entirely  (in  that  place) 
valueless  piece  of  metal,  which  can  neither  be 
eaten  nor  breathed,  instead  of  medicinal  fresh 
air,  and  pure  water  ? 

There  is  but  one  reason  for  it,  and  at  pres- 
ent a conclusive  one, — that  the  capitalist  can 
charge  percentage  on  the  work  in  the  one 
case,  and  cannot  in  the  other.  If,  having 
certain  funds  for  supporting  labor  at  my  dis- 
posal, I pay  men  merely  to  keep  my  ground 
in  order,  my  money  is,  iij  that  function,  spent 
once  for  all ; but  if  I pay  them  to  dig  iron  out 
of  my  ground,  and  work  it,  and  sell  it,  I can 
charge  rent  for  the  ground,  and  percentage 
both  on  the  manufacture  and  the  sale,  and 
make  my  capital  profitable  in  these  three  by- 
ways. The  greater  part  of  the  profitable  in- 
vestment of  capital  in  the  present  day,  is  in 
operations  of  this  kind,  in  which  the  public  is 


PREFACE . 


XI 


persuaded  to  buy  something  of  no  use  to  it, 
on  production,  or  sale,  of  which,  the  capitalist 
may  charge  percentage ; the  said  public  re- 
maining all  the  while  under  the  persuasion 
that  the  percentage  thus  obtained  are  real 
national  gains,  whereas,  they  are  merely  filch- 
ings out  of  partially  light  pockets,  to  swell 
heavy  ones. 

Thus,  the  Croydon  publican  buys  the  iron 
railing,  to  make  himself  more  conspicuous  to 
drunkards.  The  public-house  keeper  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way  presently  buys  another 
railing,  to  out-rail  him  with.  Both  are,  as  to 
their  relative  attractiveness  to  customers  of 
taste,  just  where  they  were  before ; but  they 
have  lost  the  price  of  the  railings ; which 
they  must  either  themselves  finally  lose,  or 
make  their  aforesaid  customers  of  taste  pay, 
by  raising  the  price  of  their  beer,  or  adulterat- 
ing it.  Either  the  publicans,  or  their  cus- 
tomers, are  thus  poorer  by  precisely  what  the 
capitalist  has  gained  ; and  the  value  of  the 
work  itself,  meantime,  has  been  lost,  to  the 
nation  ; the  iron  bars  in  that  form  and  place 
being  wholly  useless.  It  is  this  mode  of  tax- 
ation of  the  poor  by  the  rich  which  is  referred 
to  in  the  text  (page  ),  in  comparing  the 


12 


PREFACE. 


modern  acquisitive  power  of  capital  with  that 
of  the  lance  and  sword ; the  only  difference 
being  that  the  levy  of  black-mail  in  old  times 
was  by  force,  and  is  now  by  cozening.  The 
old  rider  and  reiver  frankly  quartered  himself 
on  the  publican  for  the  night ; the  modern  one 
merely  makes  his  lance  into  an  iron  spike, 
and  persuades  his  host  to  buy  it.  One  comes 
as  an  open  robber,  the  other  as  a cheating  ped- 
dler ; but  the  result,  to  the  injured  person’s 
pocket,  is  absolutely  the  same.  Of  course 
many  useful  industries  mingle  with,  and  dis- 
guise the  useless  ones  ; and  in  the  habits  of 
energy  aroused  by  the  struggle,  there  is  a 
certain  direct  good.  It  is  far  better  to  spend 
four  thousand  pounds  in  making  a good  gun, 
&'nd  then  to  blow  it  to  pieces,  than  to  pass 
hfe  in  idleness.  Only  do  not  let  it  be  called 
political  economy.”  There  is  also  a confused 
notion  in  the  minds  of  many  persons,  that  the 
gathering  of  the  property  of  the  poor  into  the 
hands  of  the  rich  does  no  ultimate  harm ; 
since  in  whosesoever  hands  it  may  be,  it  must 
be  spent  at  last,  and  thus,  they  think,  return 
to  the  poor  again.  This  fallacy  has  been 
again  and  again  exposed  ; but  grant  the  plea 
true,  and  the  same  apology  may,  of  course,  be 


PREFACE. 


J3 


made  for  black-mail,  or  any  other  form  of 
robbery.  It  might  be  (though  practically  it 
liever  is)  as  advantageous  for  the  nation  that 
the  robber  should  have  the  spending  of  the 
money  he  extorts,  as  that  the  person  robbed 
should  have  spent  it.  But  this  is  no  excuse 
for  the  theft.  If  I were  to  put  a turnpike  on 
the  road  where  it  passes  my  own  gate,  and  en- 
deavor to  exact  a shilling  from  every  passenger, 
the  public  would  soon  do  away  with  my  gate, 
without  listening  to  any  plea  on  my  part  that 
“ it  was  as  advantageous  to  them,  in  the  end, 
that  I should  spend  their  shillings,  as  that 
they  themselves  should.”  But  if,  instead  of 
out-facing  them  with  a turnpike,  I can  only 
persuade  them  to  come  in  and  buy  stones,  or 
o4d  iron,  or  any  other  useless  thing,  out  of  my 
ground,  I may  rob  them  to  the  same  extent, 
and  be,  moreover,  thanked  as  a public  bene- 
factor, and  promoter  of  commercial  prosperity. 
And  this  main  question  for  the  poor  of  Eng- 
land— for  the  poor  of  all  countries — is  wholly 
omitted  in  every  common  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject of  wealth.  Even  by  the  laborers  them- 
selves, the  operation  of  capital  is  regarded 
only  in  its  effect  on  their  immediate  interests ; 
never  in  the  far  more  terrific  power  of  its  ap- 


14 


PREFACE. 


pointment  of  the  kind  and  the  object  of  labor. 
It  matters  little,  ultimately,  how  much  a la- 
borer is  paid  for  making  anything;  but  it 
matters  fearfully  what  the  thing  is,  which  he 
is  compelled  to  make.  If  his  labor  is  so 
ordered  as  to  produce  food,  and  fresh  air,  and 
fresh  water,  no  matter  that  his  wages  are  low ; 
— the  food  and  fresh  air  and  water  will  be  at 
last  there  ; and  he#  will  at  last  get  them.  But 
if  he  is  paid  to  destroy  food  and  fresh  air  or 
to  produce  iron  bars  instead  of  them, — the 
food  and  air  will  finally  not  be  there,  and  he 
will  ?iot  get  them,  to  his  great  and  final  incon- 
venience. So  that,  conclusively,  in  political 
as  in  household  economy,  the  great  question 
is,  not  so  much  what  money  you  have  in  your 
pocket,  as  what  you  will  buy  with  it,  and  do 
with  it. 

I have  been  long  accustomed,  as  all  men 
engaged  in  work  of  investigation  must  be,  to 
hear  my  statements  laughed  at  for  years,  before 
they  are  examined  or  believed ; and  I am 
generally  content  to  wait  the  public’s  time. 
But  it  has  not  been  without  displeased  sur- 
prise that  I have  found  myself  totally  unable, 
as  yet,  by  any  repetition,  or  illustration,  to 
force  this  plain  thought  into  my  readers’  heads, 


PREFACE . 


*5 

—that  the  wealth  of  nations,  as  of  men,  con- 
sists in  substance,  not  in  ciphers  ; and  that 
the  real  good  of  all  work,  and  of  all  commerce, 
depends  on  the  final  worth  of  the  thing  you 
make,  or  get  by  it.  This  is  a practical  enough 
statement,  one  would  think  : but  the  English 
public  has  been  so  possessed  by  its  modern 
school  of  economists  with  the  notion  that 
Business  is  always  good,  whether  it  be  busy 
in  mischief  or  in  benefit ; and  that  buying  and 
selling  are  always  salutary,  whatever  the  in- 
trinsic worth  of  what  you  buy  or  sell, — that  it 
seems  impossible  to  gain  so  much  as  a pa- 
tient hearing  for  any  inquiry  respecting  the 
substantial  result  of  our  eager  modern  labors. 
I have  never  felt  more  checked  by  the  sense 
of  this  impossibility  than  in  arranging  the 
heads  of  the  following  three  lectures,  which, 
though  delivered  at  considerable  intervals  of 
time,  and  in  different  places,  were  not  pre- 
pared without  reference  to  each  other.  Their 
connection  would,  however,  have  been  made 
far  more  distinct,  if  I had  not  been  prevented, 
by  what  I feel  to  be  another  great  difficulty  in 
addressing  English  audiences,  from  enforcing, 
with  any  decision,  the  common,  and  to  me 
the  most  important,  part  of  their  subjects. 


i6 


PREFACE . 


I chiefly  desired  (as  I have  just  said)  to  ques- 
tion my  hearers — operatives,  merchants,  and 
soldiers,  as  to  the  ultimate  meaning  of  the 
business  they  had  in  hand  ; and  to  know  from 
them  what  they  expected  or  intended  their 
manufacture  to  come  to,  their  selling  to  come 
to,  and  their  killing  to  come  to.  That  ap- 
peared the  first  point  needing  determination 
before  I could  speak  to  them  with  any  real 
utility  or  effect.  “ You  craftsmen — salesmen 
— swordsmen, — do  but  tell  me  clearly  what 
you  want ; then  if  I can  say  anything  to  <help 
you,  I will ; and  if  not,  I will  account  to  you 
as  I best  may  for  my  inability.”  But  in 
order  to  put  this  question  into  any  terms,  one 
had  first  of  all  to  face  the  difficulty  just  spoken 
of — to  me  for  the  present  insuperable, — the 
difficulty  of  knowing  whether  to  address  one’s 
audience  as  believing,  or  not  believing,  in  any 
other  world  than  this.  For  if  you  address 
any  average  modern  English  company  as 
believing  in  an  Eternal  life,  and  endeavor  to 
draw  any  conclusions,  from  this  assumed 
belief,  as  to  their  present  business,  they  will 
forthwith  tell  you  that  what  you  say  is  very 
beautiful,  but  it  is  not  practical.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  you  frankly  address  them  as  un- 


PREFACE. 


*7 

believers  of  Eternal  life,  and  try  to  draw  any 
consequences  from  that  unbelief, — they  im- 
mediately hold  you  for  an  accursed  person, 
and  shake  off  the  dust  from  their  feet  at  you. 
And  the  more  I thought  over  what  I had  got 
to  say,  the  less  I found  I could  say  it,  without 
some  reference  to  this  intangible  or  intractable 
part  of  the  subject.  It  made  all  the  difference, 
in  asserting  any  principle  of  war,  whether  one 
assumed  that  a discharge  of  artillery  would 
merely  knead  down  a certain  quantity  of  red 
clay  into  a level  line,  as  in  a brickfield  ; or 
whether,  out  of  every  separately  Christian- 
named  portion  of  the  ruinous  heap,  there  went 
out,  into  the  smoke  and  dead-fallen  air  of 
battle,  some  astonished  condition  of  soul,  un- 
willingly released.  It  made  all  the  difference, 
in  speaking  of  the  possible  range  of  commerce, 
whether  one  assumed  that  all  bargains  related 
only  to  visible  property — or  whether  property, 
for  the  present  invisible,  but  nevertheless  real, 
was  elsewhere  purchasable  on  other  terms.  It 
made  all  the  difference,  in  addressing  a body  of 
men  subject  to  considerable  hardship,  and 
having  to  find  some  way  out  of  it — whether  one 
could  confidently  say  to  them,  “ My  friends, — 
you  have  only  to  die,  and  all  will  be  right ; ” or 


i8 


PREFACE. 


whether  orle  had  any  secret  misgiving  that 
such  advice  was  more  blessed  to  him  that 
gave,  than  to  him  that  took  it.  And  there- 
fore the  deliberate  reader  will  find,  throughout 
these  lectures,  a hesitation  in  driving  points 
home,  and  a pausing  short  of  conclusions 
which  he  will  feel  I would  fain  have  come  to  ; 
‘hesitation  which  arises  wholly  from  this  un- 
certainty of  my  hearers’  temper.  For  I do 
not  now  speak,  nor  have  I ever  spoken,  since 
the  time  of  first  forward  youth,  in  any  prose- 
lyting temper,  as  desiring  to  persuade  any  one 
of  what,  in  such  matters,  I thought  myself; 
but,  whomsoever  I venture  to  address,  I take 
for  the  time  his  creed  as  I find  it ; and  en- 
deavor to  push  it  into  such  vital  fruit  as  it 
seems  capable  of.  Thus,  it  is  a creed  with  a 
great  part  of  the  existing  English  people,  that 
they  are  in  possession  of  a book  which  tells 
them,  straight  from  the  lips  of  God,  all  they 
ought  to  do,  and  need  to  know.  I have  read 
that  book,  with  as  much  care  as  most  of  them, 
for  some  forty  years  ; and  am  thankful  that, 
on  those  who  trust  it,  I can  press  its  pleadings. 
My  endeavor  has  been  uniformly  to  make 
them  trust  it  more  deeply  than  they  do ; trust 
it,  not  in  their  own  favorite  verses  only,  but  in 


PREFACE. 


T9 


the  sum  of  all ; trust  it  not  as  a fetish  or  talis- 
man, which  they  are  to  be  saved  by  daily 
repetitions  of  ; but  as  a Captain’s  order,  to  be 
heard  and  obeyed  at  their  peril.  I was 
always  encouraged  by  supposing  my  hearers  to 
hold  such  belief.  To  these,  if  to  any,  I once 
had  hope  of  addressing,  with  acceptance, 
words  which  insisted  on  the  guilt  of  pride, 
and  the  futility  of  avarice  ; from  these,  if  from 
any,  I once  expected  ratification  of  a political 
economy,  which  asserted  that  the  life  was 
more  than  the  meat,  and  the  body  than  rai- 
ment ; and  these,  it  once  seemed  to  me,  I 
might  ask,  without  accusation  of  fanaticism, 
not  merely  in  doctrine  of  the  lips,  but  in  the 
bestowal  of  their  heart’s  treasure,  to  separate 
themselves  from  the  crowd  of  whom  it  is 
written,  “ After  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles 
seek.” 

It  cannot,  however,  be  assumed,  with  any 
semblance  of  reason,  that  a general  audience 
is  now  wholly,  or  even  in  majority,  composed 
of  these  religious  persons.  A large  portion 
must  always  consist  of  men  who  admit  no  such 
creed  ; or  who,  at  least,  are  inaccessible  to 
appeals  founded  on  it.  And  as,  with  the  so- 
called  Christian,  I desired  to  plead  for  honest 


20 


PREFACE. 


declaration  and  fulfilment  of  his  belief  in 
life, — with  the  so-called  infidel,  I desired  to 
plead  for  an  honest  declaration  and  fulfilment 
of  his  belief  in  death.  The  dilemma  is  inevi 
table.  Men  must  either  hereafter  live,  or  here- 
after die  ; fate  may  be  bravely  met,  and  con- 
duct wisely  ordered,  on  either  expectation  ; but 
never  in  hesitation  between  ungrasped  hope, 
and  unconfronted  fear.  We  usually  believe  in 
immortality,  so  far  as  to  avoid  preparation  for 
death  ; and  in  mortality,  so  far  as  to  avoid  prep* 
paration  for  anything  after  death.  Whereas, 
a wise  man  will  at  least  hold  himself  prepared 
for  one  or  other  of  two  events,  of  which  one 
or  other  is  inevitable ; and  will  have  all  things 
in  order,  for  his  sleep,  or  in  readiness,  for  his 
awakening. 

Nor  have  we  any  right  to  call  it  an  ignoble 
judgment,  if  he  determine  to  put  them  in  order, 
as  for  sleep.  A brave  belief  in  life  is  indeed 
an  enviable  state  of  mind,  but,  as  far  as  I can 
discern,  an  unusual  one.  I know  few  Chris- 
tians so  convinced  of  the  splendor  of  the  rooms 
in  their  Father’s  house,  as  to  be  happier  when 
their  friends  are  called  to  those  mansions,  than 
they  would  have  been  if  the  Queen  had  sent 
for  them  to  live  at  court : nor  has  the  Church’s 


PREFACE . 


21 


most  ardent  “ desire  to  depart,  and  be  with 
Christ/’  ever  cured  it  of  the  singular  habit  of 
putting  on  mourning  for  every  person  sum- 
moned to  such  departure.  On  the  contrary,  a 
brave  belief  in  death  has  been  assuredly  held 
by  many  not  ignoble  persons,  and  it  is  a sign 
of  the  last  depravity  in  the  Church  itself,  when 
it  assumes  that  such  a belief  is  inconsistent 
with  either  purity  of  character,  or  energy  of 
hand.  The  shortness  of  life  is  not,  to  any 
rational  person,  a conclusive  reason  for  wast- 
ing the  space  of  it  which  maybe  granted  him ; 
nor  does  the  anticipation  of  death  to-morrow 
suggest,  to  any  one  but  a drunkard,  the  ex- 
pediency of  drunkenness  to-day.  To  teach 
that  there  is  no  device  in  the  grave,  may  indeed 
make  the  deviceless  person  more  contented  in 
his  dulness  ; but  it  will  make  the  deviser  only 
more  earnest  in  devising  : nor  is  human  con- 
duct likely,  in  every  case,  to  be  purer,  under 
the  conviction  that  all  its  evil  may  in  a moment 
be  pardoned,  and  all  its  wrong-doing  in  a 
moment  redeemed  ; and  that  the  sigh  of  re- 
pentance, which  purges  the  guilt  of  the  past, 
will  waft  the  soul  into  a felicity  which  forgets 
its  pain, — than  it  may  be  under  the  sterner, 
and  to  many  not  unwise  minds,  more  probable, 


22 


PREFACE. 


apprehension,  that  “ what  a man  soweth  that 
shall  he  also  reap,” — or  others  reap, — when  he, 
the  living  seed  of  pestilence,  walketh  no  more 
in  darkness,  but  lies  down  therein. 

But  to  men  whose  feebleness  of  sight,  or 
bitterness  of  soul,  or  the  offence  given  by  the 
conduct  of  those  who  claim  higher  hope,  may 
have  rendered  this  painful  creed  the  only  pos- 
sible one,  there  is  an  appeal  to  be  made,  more 
secure  in  its  ground  than  any  which  can  be 
addressed  to  happier  persons.  I would  fain, 
if  I might  offencelessly,  have  spoken  to  them 
as  if  none  others  heard  ; and  have  said  thus  : 
Hear  me,  you  dying  men,  who  will  soon  be 
deaf  forever.  For  these  others,  at  your  right 
hand  and  your  left,  who  look  forward  to  a state 
of  infant  existence,  in  which  all  their  errors 
will  be  overruled,  and  all  their  faults  forgiven  ; 
for  these,  who,  stained  and  blackened  in  the 
battle-smoke  of  mortality,  have  but  to  dip  them- 
selves for  an  instant  in  the  font  of  death,  and 
to  rise  renewed  of  plumage,  as  a dove  that  is 
covered  with  silver,  and  her  feathers  like  gold  ; 
for  these,  indeed,  it  may  be  permissible  to 
waste  their  numbered  moments,  through  faith 
in  a future  of  innumerable  hours ; to  these,  in 
their  weakness,  it  may  be  conceded  that  they 


PREFACE. 


23 


should  tamper  with  sin  which  can  only  bring 
forth  fruit  of  righteousness,  and  profit  by  the 
iniquity  which,  one  day,  will  be  remembered 
no  more.  In  them,  it  may  be  no  sign  of  hard- 
ness of  heart  to  neglect  the  poor,  over  whom 
they  know  their  Master  is  watching ; and  to 
leave  those  to  perish  temporarily,  who  cannot 
perish  eternally.  But,  for  you,  there  is  no  such 
hope,  and  therefore  no  such  excuse.  This  fate 
which  you  ordain  for  the  wretched,  you  believe 
to  be  all  their  inheritance  ; you  may  crush 
them,  before  the  moth,  and  they  will  never 
rise  to  rebuke  you ; — their  breath,  which  fails 
for  lack  of  food,  once  expiring,  will  never  be 
recalled  to  whisper  against  you  a word  of 
accusing; — they  and  you,  as.  you  think,  shall 
lie  down  together  in  the  dust,  and  the  worms 
cover  you; — and  for  them  there  shall  be  no 
consolation,  and  on  you  no  vengeance, — only 
the  question  murmured  above  your  grave : 
“ Who  shall  repay  him  what  he  hath  done  ? ” 
Is  it  therefore  easier  for  you  in  your  heart  to 
inflict  the  sorrowT  for  which  there  is  no  remedy  ? 
Will  you  take,  wantonly,  this  little  all  of  his  life 
from  your  poor  brother,  and  make  his  brief  hours 
long  to  him  with  pain  ? Will  you  be  readier 
to  the  injustice  which  can  never  be  redressed  ; 


24 


PREFACE. 


and  niggardly  of  mercy  which  you  can  bestow 
but  once,  and  which,  refusing,  you  refuse  for- 
ever ?.  I think  better  of  you,  even  of  the  most 
selfish,  than  that  you  would  do  this,  well  under- 
stood. And  for  yourselves,  it  seems  to  me, 
the  question  becomes  not  less  grave,  in  these 
curt  limits.  If  your  life  were  but  a fever 
fit, — the  madness  of  a night,  whose  follies  were 
all  to  be  forgotten  in  the  dawn,  it  might  mat- 
ter little  how  you  fretted  away  the  sickly  hours, 
—what  toys  you  snatched  at,  or  let  fall, — what 
visions  you  followed  wistfully  with  the  deceived 
eyes  of  sleepless  phrenzy.  Is  the  earth  only  an 
hospital  ? Play,  if  you  care  to  play,  on  the  floor 
of  the  hospital  dens.  Knit  its  straw  into  what 
crowns  please  you  ; gather  the  dust  of  it  for 
treasure,  and  die  rich  in  that,  clutching  at  the 
black  motes  in  the  air  with  your  dying  hands  ; — 
and  yet,  it  may  be  well  with  you.  But  if  this  life 
be  no  dream,  and  the  world  no  hospital ; if  all 
the  peace  and  power  and  joy  you  can  ever  win, 
must  be  won  now;  and  all  fruit  of  victory 
gathered  here,  or  never ; — will  you  still, 
throughout  the  puny  totality  of  your  life,  weary 
yourselves  in  the  fire  for  vanity  ? If  there  is 
no  rest  which  remaineth  for  you,  is  there  none 
you  might  presently  take  ? was  this  grass  of 


PREFACE . 


2S 

the  earth  made  green  for  your  shroud  only, 
not  for  your  bed  ? and  can  you  never  lie  down 
upon  it,  but  only  tender  it  ? The  heathen,  to 
whose  creed  you  have  returned,  thought  not 
so.  They  knew  that  life  brought  its  contest, 
but  they  expected  from  it  also  the  crown  of  all 
contest : No  proud  one  ! no  jewelled  circlet 
flaming  through  Heaven  above  the  height  of 
the  unmerited  throne  ; only  some  few  leaves 
of  wild  olive,  cool  to  the  tired  brow,  through 
a few  years  of  peace.  It  should  have  been  of 
gold,  they  thought ; but  Jupiter  was  poor ; this 
was  the  best  the  god  could  give  them.  Seek- 
ing a greater  than  this,  they  had  known  it  a 
mockery.  Not  in  war,  not  in  wealth,  not  in 
tyranny,  was  there  any  happiness  to  be  found 
for  them — only  in  kindly  peace,  fruitful  and 
free.  The  wreath  was  to  be  of  wild  olive,  mark 
you : — the  tree  that  grows  carelessly,  tufting 
the  rocks  with  no  vivid  bloom,  no  verdure  of 
branch  ; only  with  soft  snow  of  blossom,  and 
scarcely  fulfilled  fruit,  mixed  with  gray  leaf 
and  thorn-set  stem  ; no  fastening  of  diadem  for 
you  but  with  such  sharp  embroidery  ! But 
this,  such  as  it  is,  you  may  win  while  yet  you 
live ; type  of  great  honor  and  sweet  rest.* 

*/AeXtr6e(7cra  a£d\o*v  7’  eVe/cep. 


26 


PREFACE. 


Free-heartedness,  and  graciousness,  and  undis- 
turbed  trust,  and  requited  love,  and  the  sight 
of  the  peace  of  others,  and  the  ministry  to 
their  pain ; — these,  and  the  blue  sky  above 
you,  and  the  sweet  waters  and  flowers  of  the 
earth  beneath  ; and  mysteries  and  presences, 
innumerable,  of  living  things, — these  may  yet 
be  here  your  riches  ; untormenting  and  divine  : 
serviceable  for  the  life  that  now  is  ; nor,  it  may 
be,  without  promise  of  that  which  is  to  come. 


LECTURE  I 

WORK. 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


LECTURE  I. 

WORK. 

{Delivered  before  the  Working  Men's  Institute , at  Camberwell .) 

My  Friends, — I have  not  come  among  you 
to-night  to  endeavor  to  give  you  an  entertain- 
ing lecture  ; but  to  tell  you  a few  plain  facts, 
and  ask  you  some  plain,  but  necessary  ques- 
tions. I have  seen  and  known  too  much  of 
the  struggle  for  life  among  our  laboring  pop- 
ulation, to  feel  at  ease,  even  under  any  circum- 
stances, in  inviting  them  to  dwell  on  the  trivi- 
alities of  my  own  studies  ; but,  much  more, 
as  I meet  to-night,  for  the  first  time,  the  mem- 
bers of  a working  Institute  established  in  the 
district  in  which  I have  passed  the  greater 
part  of  my  life,  I am  desirous  that  we  should 
at  once  understand  each  other,  on  graver  mat- 
ters. I would  fain  tell  you,  with  what  feelings, 
and  with  what  hope,  I regard  this  Institution, 

29 


3° 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


as  one  of  many  such,  now  happily  established 
throughout  England,  as  well  as  in  other  coun- 
tries ; — Institutions  which  are  preparing  the 
way  for  a great  change  in  all  the  circumstances 
of  industrial  life  ; but  of  which  the  success 
must  wholly  depend  upon  our  clearly  under-® 
standing  the  circumstances  and  necessary 
limits  of  this  change.  No  teacher  can  truly 
promote  the  cause  of  education,  until  he  knows 
the  conditions  of  the  life  for  which  that  edu- 
cation is  to  prepare  his  pupil.  And  the  fact 
that  he  is  called  upon  to  address  you,  nomi- 
nally, as  a “ Working  Class/’  must  compel  him, 
if  he  is  in  any  wise  earnest  or  thoughtful,  to 
inquire  in  the  outset,  on  what  you  yourselves 
suppose  this  class  distinction  has  been  founded 
in  the  past,  and  must  be  founded  in  the  future. 
The  manner  of  the  amusement,  and  the  matter 
of  the  teaching,  which  any  of  us  can  offer  you, 
must  depend  wholly  on  our  first  understand- 
ing from  you,  whether  you  think  the  distinc- 
tion heretofore  drawn  between  working  men 
and  others,  is  truly  or  falsely  founded.  Do 
you  accept  it  as  it  stands  ? do  you  wish  it  to 
be  modified  ? or  do  you  think  the  object  of 
education  is  to  efface  it,  and  make  us  forget  it 
forever  ? 


WORK. 


31 


Let  me  make  myself  more  distinctly  under- 
stood. We  call  this — you  and  I — a “ Work- 
ing Men’s  ” Institute,  and  our  college  in  Lon- 
don, a “ Working  Men’s  ” College.  Now,  how 
do  you  consider  that  these  several  institutes 
differ,  or  ought  to  differ,  from  “ idle  men’s  ” 
institutes  and  “ idle  men’s  ” colleges  ? Or  by 
what  other  word  than  “ idle  ” shall  I distin- 
guish those  whom  the  happiest  and  wisest  of 
working  men  do  not  object  to  call  the  “ Upper 
Classes  ’’  ? Are  there  really  upper  classes, — 
are  there  lower?  How  much  should  they 
always  be  elevated,  how  much  always  de- 
pressed ? And,  gentlemen  and  ladies — I pray 
those  of  you  who  are  here  to  forgive  me  the 
offence  there  may  be  in  what  I am  going  to 
say.  It  is  not  / who  wish  to  say  it.  Bitter 
voices  say  it : voices  of  battle  and  of  famine 
through  all  the  world,  which  must  be  heard 
some  day,  whoever  keeps  silence.  Neither  is 
it  to  you  specially  that  I say  it.  I am  sure 
that  most  now  present  know  their  duties  of 
kindness,  and  fulfil  them,  better  perhaps  than 
I do  mine.  But  I speak  to  you  as  represent- 
ing your  whole  class,  which  errs,  I know, 
chiefly  by  thoughtlessness,  but  not  therefore 
the  less  terribly.  Wilful  error  is  limited  by 


32  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


the  will,  but  what  limit  is  there  to  that  of 
which  we  are  unconscious? 

Bear  with  me,  therefore,  while  I turn  to 
these  workmen,  and  ask  them,  also  as  repre- 
senting a great  multitude,  what  they  think  the 
“ upper  classes  ” are,  and  ought  to  be,  in  rela- 
tion to  them.  Answer,  you  workmen  who  are 
here,  as  you  would  among  yourselves,  frankly ; 
and  tell  me  how  you  would  have  me  call  those 
classes.  Am  I to  call  them — would  yoit  think 
me  right  in  calling  them — the  idle  classes  ? I 
think  you  would  feel  somewhat  uneasy,  and  as 
if  I were  not  treating  my  subject  honestly,  or 
speaking  from  my  heart,  if  I went  on  under 
the  supposition  that  all  rich  people  were  idle. 
You  would  be  both  unjust  and  unwise  if  you 
allowed  me  to  say  that ; — not  less  unjust  than 
the  rich  people  who  say  that  all  the  poor  are 
idle,  and  will  never  work  if  they  can  help  it,  or 
more  than  they  can  help. 

For  indeed  the  fact  is,  that  there  are  idle 
poor  and  idle  rich  ; and  there  are  busy  poor 
and  busy  rich.  Many  a beggar  is  as  lazy  as 
if  he  had  ten  thousand  a year ; and  many  a 
many  of  large  fortune  is  busier  than  his  er- 
rand-boy, and  never  would  think  of  stopping  in 
the  street  to  play  marbles.  So  that,  in  a large 


WORK. 


33 


view,  the  distinction  between  workers  and 
idlers,  as  between  knaves  and  and  honest  men, 
runs  through  the  very  heart  and  innermost 
economies  of  men  of  all  ranks  and  in  all  posi- 
tions. There  is  a working  class — strong  and 
happy — among  both  rich  and  poor;  there  is 
an  idle  class — weak,  wicked,  and  miserable — 
among  both  rich  and  poor.  And  the  worst  of 
the  misunderstandings  arising  between  the  two 
orders  come  of  the  unlucky  fact  that  the  wise 
of  one  class  habitually  contemplate  the  foolish 
of  the  other.  If  the  busy  rich  people  watched 
and  rebuked  the  idle  rich  people,  all  would  be 
right ; and  if  the  busy  poor  people  watched 
and  rebuked  the  idle  poor  people,  all  would 
be  right.  But  each  class  has  a tendency  to 
look  for  the  faults  of  the*  other.  A hard-work- 
ing man  of  property  is  particularly  offended 
by  an  idle  beggar  ; and  an  orderly,  but  poor, 
workman  is  naturally  intolerant  of  the  licen- 
tious luxury  of  the  rich.  And  what  is  severe 
judgment  in  the  minds  of  the  just  men  of  either 
class,  becomes  fierce  enmity  in  the  unjust— 
but  among  the  unjust  only.  None  but  the 
dissolute  among  the  poor  look  upon  the  rich 
as  their  natural  enemies,  or  desire  to  pillage 
their  house  and  divide  their  property.  None 


34  THE  crown  of  wild  olive . 

but  the  dissolute  among  the  rich  speak  in  op- 
probrious terms  of  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
poor. 

There  is,  then,  no  class  distinction  between 
idle  and  industrious  people ; and  I am  going 
to-night  to  speak  only  of  the  industrious. 
The  idle  people  we  will  put  out  of  our  thoughts 
at  once — they  are  mere  nuisances — what  ought 
to  be  done  with  them , we’ll  talk  of  at  another 
time.  But  there  are  class  distinctions  among 
the  industrious  themselves  ; — tremendous  dis- 
tinctions, which  rise  and  fall  to  every  degree  in 
the  infinite  thermometer  of  human  pain  and  of 
human  power — distinctions  of  high  and  low, 
of  lost  and  won,  to  the  whole  reach  of  man’s 
soul  and  body. 

These  separations  we  will  study,  and  the 
laws  of  them,  among  energetic  men  only,  who, 
whether  they  work  or  whether  they  play,  put 
their  strength  into  the  work,  and  their  strength 
into  the  game ; being  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word  “industrious,”  one  way  or  another — with 
a purpose,  or  without.  And  these  distinctions 
are  mainly  four  : 

I.  Between  those  who  work,  and  thos*  who 
play. 


WORK. 


35 

II.  Between  those  who  produce  the  means 
of  life,  and  those  who  consume  them. 

III.  Between  those  who  work  with  the  head, 
and  those  who  work  with  the  hand. 

IV.  Between  those  who  work  wisely,  and 
who  work  foolishly. 

For  easier  memory,  let  us  say  we  are  going 
to  oppose,  in  our  examination, — 

I.  Work  to  play  ; 

II.  Production  to  consumption  ; 

III.  Head  to  hand;  and, 

IV.  Sense  to  nonsense. 

I.  First,  then,  of  the  distinction  between  th(s 
classes  who  work  and  the  classes  who  play.  Of 
course  we  must  agree  upon  a definition  of  these 
terms, — work  and  play, — before  going  farther. 
Now,  roughly,  not  with  vain  subtlety  of  define 
tion,  but  for  plain  use  of  the  words,  “ play  ” is 
an  exertion  of  body  or  mind,  made  to  please 
ourselves,  and  with  no  determined  end  ; and 
work  is  a thing  done  because  it  ought  to 
be  done,  and  with  a determined  end.  You 
play,  as  you  call  it,  at  cricket,  for  instance. 
That  is  as  hard  work  as  anything  else  ; but  it 
amuses  you,  and  it  has  no  result  but  the 
amusement.  If  it  were  done  as  an  ordered 
form  of  exercise,  for  health’s  sake,  it  would 


36  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


become  work  directly.  So,  in  like  manner, 
whatever  we  do  to  please  ourselves,  and  only 
for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure,  not  for  an  ultimate 
object,  is  “ play,”  the  “ pleasing  thing,”  not  the 
useful  thing.  Play  may  be  useful  in  a second- 
ary sense  (nothing  is  indeed  more  useful  or 
necessary) ; but  the  use  of  it  depends  on  its 
being  spontaneous. 

Let  us,  then,  inquire  together  what  sort  of 
games  the  playing  class  in  England  spend 
their  lives  in  playing  at. 

The  first  of  all  English  games  is  making 
money.  That  is  an  all-absorbing  game  ; and 
we  knock  each  other  down  oftener  in  playing 
at  that  than  at  foot-ball,  or  any  other  roughest 
sport ; and  it  is  absolutely  without  purpose ; 
no  one  who  engages  heartily  in  that  game 
ever  knows  why.  Ask  a great  money-maker 
what  he  wants  to  do  with  his  money — he  never 
knows.  He  doesn’t  make  it  to  do  anything 
with  it.  He  gets  it  only  that  he  may  get  it. 
“ What  will  you  make  of  what  you  have  got  ? ” 
you  ask.  “ Well,  I’ll  get  more,”  he  says.  Just 
as,  at  cricket,  you  get  more  runs.  There’s 
no  use  in  the  runs,  but  to  get  more  of  them 
than  other  people  is  the  game.  And  there’s 
no  use  in  the  money,  but  to  have  more  of  it 


WORK. 


37 


than  other  people  is  the  game.  So  all  that 
great  foul  city  of  London  there, — rattling, 
growling,  smoking,  stinking, — a ghastly  heap 
of  fermenting  brickwork,  pouring  out  poison 
at  every  pore, — you  fancy  it  is  a city  of 
work  ? Not  a street  of  it ! It  is  a great  city 
of  play  ; very  nasty  play,  and  very  hard  play, 
but  still  play.  It  is  only  Lord’s  cricket  ground 
without  the  turf, — a huge  billiard  table  without 
the  cloth,  and  with  pockets  as  deep  as  the 
bottomless  pit ; but  mainly  a billiard  table, 
after  all. 

Well,  the  first  great  English  game  is  this 
playing  at  counters.  It  differs  from  the  rest 
in  that  it  appears  always  to  be  producing 
money,  while  every  other  game  is  expensive. 
But  it  does  not  always  produce  money. 
There’s  a great  difference  between  “ winning  ” 
money  and  “ making  ” it ; a great  difference 
between  getting  it  out  of  another  man’s  pocket 
into  ours,  or  filling  both.  Collecting  money  is 
by  no  means  the  same  thing  as  making  it ; the 
tax-gatherer’s  house  is  not  the  Mint;  and 
much  of  the  apparent  gain  (so  called),  in  com- 
merce, is  only  a form  of  taxation  on  carriage 
or  exchange. 

Our  next  great  English  game,  however, 


38  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE, . 


hunting  and  shooting,  is  costly  altogether; 
and  how  much  we  are  fined  for  it  annually  in 
land,  horses,  gamekeepers,  and  game  laws, 
and  all  else  that  accompanies  that  beautiful 
and  special  English  game,  I will  not  endeavor 
to  count  now  : but  note  only  that,  except  for 
exercise,  this  is  not  merely  a useless  game, 
but  a deadly  one,  to  all  connected  with  it. 
For  through  horse-racing,  you  get  every  form 
of  what  the  higher  classes  everywhere  call 
“ Play,”  in  distinction  from  all  other  plays  ; 
that  is — gambling ; by  no  means  a beneficial 
or  recreative  game  : and,  through  game-preserv- 
ing,  you  get  also  some  curious  laying  out  of 
ground ; that  beautiful  arrangement  of  dwell- 
ing-house for  man  and  beast,  by  which  we 
have  grouse  and  blackcock — so  many  brace  to 
the  acre,  and  men  and  women — so  many  brace 
to  the  garret.  I often  wonder  what  the  an- 
gelic builders  and  surveyors — the  angelic 
builders  who  build  the  “ many  mansions  ” up 
above  there  ; and  the  angelic  surveyors,  who 
measured  that  four-square  city  with  their 
measuring  reeds — I wonder  what  they  think, 
or  are  supposed  to  think,  of  the  laying  out  of 
ground  by  this  nation,  which  has  set  itself,  as 
it  seems,-  literally  to  accomplish,  word  for 


WORK. 


39 


word,  or  rather  fact  for  word,  in  the  persons 
of  those  poor  whom  its  Master  left  to  rep- 
resent him,  what  that  Master  said  of  himself — 
that  foxes  and  birds  had  homes,  but  He 
none. 

Then,  next  to  the  gentlemen’s  game  of 
hunting,  we  must  put  the  ladies’  game  of  dress- 
ing. It  is  not  the  .cheapest  of  games.  I saw 
a brooch  at  a jeweller’s  in  Bond  Street  a fort- 
night ago,  not  an  inch  wide,  and  without  any 
singular  jewel  in  it,  yet  worth  3,000/.  And  I 
wish  I could  tell  you  what  this  “ play  ” costs, 
altogether,  in  England,  France,  and  Russia 
annually.  But  it  is  a pretty  game,  and  on  cer- 
tain terms,  I like  it ; nay,  I don’t  see  it  played 
quite  as  much  as  I would  fain  have  it.  You 
ladies  like  to  lead  the  fashion  : — by  all  means 
lead  it — lead  it  thoroughly,  lead  it  far  enough. 
Dress  yourselves  nicely,  and  dress  everybody 
else  nicely.  Lead  the  fashiojis  for  the  poor  first ; 
make  them  look  well,  and  you  yourselves  will 
look,  in  ways  of  which  you  have  now  no  con- 
ception, all  the  better.  The  fashions  you  have 
set  for  some  time  among  your  peasantry  are 
not  pretty  ones  ; their  doublets  are  too  irregu- 
larly slashed,  and  the  wind  blows  too  frankly 
through  them. 


40  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


Then  there  are  other  games,  wild  enough, 
as  I could  show  you  if  I had  time. 

There’s  playing  at  literature,  and  playing  at 
art — very  different,  both,  from  working  at 
literature,  or  working  at  art,  but  I’ve  no  time 
to  speak  of  these.  I pass  to  the  greatest  of 
all — the  play  of  plays,  the  great  gentlemen’s 
game,  which  ladies  like  them  best  to  play  at, 
— the  game  of  War.  It  is  entrancingly  pleas- 
ant to  the  imagination ; the  facts  of  it,  not 
always  so  pleasant.  We  dress  for  it,  however, 
more  finely  than  for  any  other  sport ; and  go 
out  to  it,  not  merely  in  scarlet,  as  to  hunt, 
but  in  scarlet  and  gold,  and  all  manner  of  fine 
colors  : of  course  we  could  fight  better  in 
gray,  and  without  feathers ; but  all  nations 
have  agreed  that  it  is  good  to  be  well  dressed 
at  this  play.  Then  the  bats  and  balls  are 
very  costly ; our  English  and  French  bats, 
with  the  balls  and  wickets,  even  those  which 
we  don’t  make  any  use  of,  costing,  I suppose, 
now  about  fifteen  millions  of  money  annually 
to  each  nation  ; ail  of  which  you  know  is  paid 
for  by  hard  laborer’s  work  in  the  furrow  and 
furnace.  A costly  game  ! — not  to  speak  of 
its  consequences;  I will  say  at  present  noth- 
ing of  tfiese.  The  mere  immediate  cost  of  all 


WORK. 


41 


these  plays  is  what  I want  you  to  consider ; 
they  all  cost  deadly  work  somewhere,  as  many 
of  us  know  too  well.  The  jewel-cutter,  whose 
sight  fails  over  the  diamonds  ; the  weaver, 
whose  arm  fails  over  the  web  ; the  iron-forger, 
whose  breath  fails  before  the  furnace — they 
know  what  work  is — they,  who  have  all  the 
work,  and  none  of  the  play,  except  a kind 
they  have  named  for  themselves  down  in  the 
black  north  country,  where  “play”  means 
being  laid  up  by  sickness.  It  is  a pretty 
example  for  philologists,  of  varying  dialect, 
this  change  in  the  sense  of  the  word  “ play,”  as 
used  in  the  black  country  of  Birmingham,  and 
the  red  and  black  country  of  Baden  Baden. 
Yes,  gentlemen,  and  gentlewomen,  of  England, 
who  think  “ one  moment  unamused  a misery, 
not  made  for  feeble  man,”  this  is  what  you 
have  brought  the  word  “ play  ” to  mean,  in  the 
heart  of  merry  England  ! You  may  have 
your  fluting  and  piping ; but  there  are  sad 
children  sitting  in  the  market-place,  who 
indeed  cannot  say  to  you,  “We  have  piped 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced  : ” but  eter- 
nally shall  say  to  you,  “ We  have  mourned 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  lamented.” 

This,  then,  is  the  first  distinction  between 


42  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

the  “ upper  and  lower  ” classes.  And  this  is 
one  which  is  by  no  means  necessary ; which 
indeed  must,  in  process  of  good  time,  be*  by 
all  honest  men’s  consent  abolished.  Men  will 
be  taught  that  an  existence  of  play,  sustained 
by  the  blood  of  other  creatures,  is  a good 
existence  for  gnats  and  sucking  fish  ; but  not 
for  men  : that  neither  days,  nor  lives,  can  be 
made  holy  by  doing  nothing  in  them  : that 
the  best  prayer  at  the  beginning  of  a day  is 
that  we  may  not  lose  its  moments ; and  the 
best  grace  before  meat,  the  consciousness  that 
we  have  justly  earned  our  dinner.  And  when 
we  have  this  much  of  plain  Christianity 
preached  to  us  again,  and  enough  respect  what 
we  regard  as  inspiration,  as  not  to  think  that 
“ Son,  go  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard,”  means 
“ Fool,  go  play  to-day  in  my  vineyard,”  we  shall 
all  be  workers,  in  one  way  or  another;  and 
this  much  at  least  of  the  distinction  between 
“ upper  ” and  “ lower  ” forgotten. 

II.  I pass  then  to  our  second  distinction  ; 
between  the  rich  and  poor,  between  Dives 
and  Lazarus, — distinction  which  exists  more 
sternly,  I suppose,  in  this  day,  than  ever  in 
the  world,  Pagan  or  Christian,  till  now.  I will 
put  it  sharply  before  you,  to  begin  with,  merely 


I 


WORK. 


43 


by  reading  two  paragraphs  which  I cut  from 
two  papers  that  lay  on  my  breakfast  table  on 
the  same  morning,  the  25th  of  November, 
1864.  The  piece  about  the  rich  Russian  at 
Paris  is  commonplace  enough,  and  stupid 
besides  (for  fifteen  francs, — 12s.  6d., — is  noth- 
ing for  a rich  man  to  give  for  a couple  of 
peaches,  out  of  season).  Still,  the  two  para- 
graphs printed  on  the  same  day  are  worth 
putting  side  by  side. 

“ Such  a man  is  now  here.  He  is  a Russian, 
and,  with  your  permission,  we  will  call  him 
Count  Teufelskine.  In  dress  he  is  sublime ; 
art  is  considered  in  that  toilet,  the  harmony  of 
color  respected,  the  chiar ’ os  euro  evident  in 
well-selected  contrast.  In  manners  he  is  dig- 
nified— nay,  perhaps  apathetic  ; nothing  dis- 
turbs the  placid  serenity  of  that  calm  exterior. 
One  day  our  friend  breakfasted  chez  Bignon. 
When  the  bill  came  he  read,  ‘ Two  peaches, 
1 5f/  He  paid.  ‘ Peaches  scarce,  I presume  ? ’ 
was  his  sole  remark.  6 No,  sir,’  replied  the 
waiter,  ‘but  Teufelskines  are/  ” — Telegraph , 
November  15,  1864. 

“ Yesterday  morning,  at  eight  o’clock,  a 
woman,  passing  a dung  heap  in  the  stone 
yard  near  the  recently-erected  almshouses  in 


44 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


Shadwell  Gap,  High  Street,  Shadwell,  called 
the  attention  of  a Thames  police-constable  to 
a man  in  a sitting  position  on  the  dung  heap, 
and  said  she  was  afraid  he  was  dead.  Her 
fears  proved  to  be  true.  The  wretched  creat- 
ure appeared  to  have  been  dead  several  hours. 
He  had  perished  of  cold  and  wet,  and  the  rain 
had  been  beating  down  on  him  all  night.  The 
deceased  was  a bone-picker.  He  was  in  the 
lowest  stage  of  poverty,  poorly  clad,  and  half- 
starved.  The  police  had  frequently  driven 
him  away  from  the  stone  yard,  between  sunset 
and  sunrise,  and  told  him  to  go  home.  He 
selected  a most  desolate  spot  for  his  wretched 
death.  A penny  and  some  bones  were  found 
in  his  pockets.  The  deceased  was  between 
fifty  and  sixty  years  of  age.  Inspector  Ro- 
berts, of  the  K division,  has  given  directions  for 
inquiries  to  be  made  at  the  lodging-houses 
respecting  the  deceased,  to  ascertain  his  iden- 
tity if  possible.” — Morning  Post,  November  25, 
1864. 

You  have  the  separation  thus  in  brief  com- 
pass; and  I want  you  to  take  notice  of  the 
“ a penny  and  some  bones  were  found  in  his 
pockets,”  and  to  compare  it  with  this  third 


WORK.  45 

statement,  from  the  Telegraph  of  January  16th 
of  this  year  : — 

“ Again,  the  dietary  scale  for  adult  and 
juvenile  paupers  was  drawn  up  by  the  most 
conspicuous  political  economists  in  England. 
It  is  low  in  quantity,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  sup- 
port nature ; yet  within  ten  years  of  the  pass- 
ing of  the  Poor  Law  Act,  we  heard  of  the  pau- 
pers in  the  Andover  Union  gnawing  the  scraps 
of  putrid  flesh  and  sucking  the  marrow  from 
the  bones  of  horses  which  they  were  employed 
to  crush.” 

You  see  my  reason  for  thinking  that  our 
Lazarus  of  Christianity  has  some  advantage 
over  the  Jewish  one.  Jewish  Lazarus  expected, 
or  at  least  prayed,  to  be  fed  with  crumbs  from 
the  rich  man’s  table  ; but  our  Lazarus  is  fed 
with  crumbs  from  the  dog’s  table. 

Now  this  distinction  between  rich  and  poor 
rests  on  two  bases.  Within  its  proper  limits, 
on  a basis  which  is  lawful  and  everlastingly 
necessary  ; beyond  them,  on  a basis  unlawful, 
and  everlastingly  corrupting  the  frame-work  of 
society.  The  lawful  basis  of  wealth  is,  that  a 
man  who  works  should  be  paid  the  fair  value 
of  his  work  ; and  if  he  does  not  choose  to 
spend  it  to-day,  he  should  have  free  leave  to 


46  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE, 

keep  it,  and  spend  it  to-morrow.  Thus,  an 
industrious  man  working  daily,  and  laying  by 
daily,  attains  at  last  the  possession  of  an  ac- 
cumulated sum  of  wealth,  to  which  he  has  ab- 
solute right.  The  idle  person  who  will  not 
work,  and  the  wasteful  person  who  lays  nothing 
by,  at  the  end  of  the  same  time  will  be  doubly 
poor — poor  in  possession,  and  dissolute  in 
moral  habit ; and  he  will  then  naturally  covet 
the  money  which  the  other  has  saved.  And 
if  he  is  then  allowed  to  attack  the  other,  and 
rob  him  of  his  well-earned  wealth,  there  is  no 
more  any  motive  for  saving,  or  any  reward  for 
good  conduct ; and  all  society  is  thereupon 
dissolved,  or  exists  only  in  systems  of  rapine. 
Therefore  the  first  necessity  of  social  life  is 
the  clearness  of  national  conscience  in  en- 
forcing the  law — that  he  should  keep  who  has 

JUSTLY  EARNED. 

That  law,  I say,  is  the  proper  basis  of  dis- 
tinction between  rich  and  poor.  But  there  is 
also  a false  basis  of  distinction ; namely,  the 
power  held  over  those  who  earn  wealth  by 
those  who  levy  or  exact  it.  There  will  be  always 
a number  of  men  who  would  fain  set  them- 
selves to  the  accumulation  of  wealth  as  the 
sole  object  of  their  lives.  Necessarily,  that 


WORK. 


47 


class  of  men  is  an  uneducated  class,  inferior  in 
intellect,  and  more  or  less  cowardly.  It  is 
physically  impossible  for  a well-educated,  in- 
tellectual, or  brave  man  to  make  money  the 
chief  object  of  his  thoughts  ; as  physically  im- 
possible as  it  is  for  him  to  make  his  dinner 
the  principal  object  of  them.  All  healthy 
people  like  their  dinners,  but  their  dinner  is 
not  the  main  object  of  their  lives.  So  all 
healthily  minded  people  like  making  money — 
ought  to  like  it,  and  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of 
winning  it ; but  the  main  object  of  their  life  is 
not  money  ; it  is  something  better  than  money. 
A good  soldier,  for  instance,  mainly  wishes  to 
do  his  fighting  well.  He  is  glad  of  his  pay — 
very  properly  so,  and  justly  grumbles  when 
you  keep  him  ten  years  without  it — still,  his 
main  notion  of  life  is  to  win  battles,  not  to  be 
paid  for  winning  them.  So  of  clergymen. 
They  like  pew-rents,  and  baptismal  fees,  of 
course;  but  yet,  if  they  are  brave  and  well 
educated,  the  pew-rent  is  not  the  sole  object  of 
their  lives,  and  the  baptismal  fee  is  not  the  sole 
purpose  of  the  baptism  ; the  clergyman’s  object 
is  essentially  to  baptize  and  preach,  not  to  be 
paid  for  preaching.  So  of  doctors.  They  like 
fees  no  doubt, — ought  to  like  them  ; yet  if  they 


48  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


are  brave  and  well  educated,  the  entire  object 
of  their  lives  is  not  fees.  They,  on  the  whole, 
desire  to  cure  the  sick ; and, — if  they  are 
good  doctors,  and  the  choice  were  fairly  put 
to  them, — would  rather  cure  their  patient,  and 
lose  their  fee,  than  kill  him,  and  get  it.  And 
so  with  all  other  brave  and  rightly  trained 
men ; their  work  is  first,  their  fee  second — 
very  important  always,  but  still  seco7id.  But 
in  every  nation,  as  I said,  there  are  a vast 
class  who  are  ill-educated,  cowardly,  and  more 
or  less  stupid.  And  with  these  people,  just 
as  certainly  the  fee  is  first,  and  the  work 
second,  as  with  brave  people  the  work  is  first 
and  the  fee  second.  And  this  is  no  small 
distinction.  It  is  the  whole  distinction  in 
man  ; distinction  between  life  and  death  in 
him,  between  heaven  and  hell  for  him.  You 
cannot  serve  two  masters  ; — you  must  serve 
one  or  other.  If  your  work  is  first  with 
you,  and  your  fee  second,  work  is  your 
master,  and  the  lord  of  work,  who  is  God. 
But  if  your  fee  is  first  with  you,  and  your 
work  second,  fee  is  your  master,  and  the  lord 
of  fee,  who  is  the  Devil ; and  not  only  the 
Devil,  but  the  lowest  of  devils — the  “ least 
erected  fiend  that  fell.”  So  there  you  have  it 


WORK. 


49 


in  the  briefest  terms ; Work  first — you  are 
God’s  servants ; Fee  first — you  are  the 
Fiend’s.  And  it  makes  a difference,  now 
and  ever,  believe  me,  whether  you  serve  Him 
who  has  on  His  vesture  and  thigh  written, 
“ King  of  Kings,”  and  whose  service  is  perfect 
freedom  ; or  him  on  whose  vesture  and  thigh 
the  name  is  written,  “ Slave  of  Slaves,”  and 
whose  service  is  perfect  slavery. 

However,  in  every  nation  there  are,  and 
must  always  be  a certain  number  of  these 
Fiend’s  servants,  who  have  it  principally  for 
the  object  of  their  lives  to  make  money. 
They  are  always,  as  I said,  more  or  less 
stupid,  and  cannot  conceive  of  anything  else 
so  nice  as  money.  Stupidity  is  always  the 
basis  of  the  Judas  bargain.  We  do  great  in- 
justice to  Iscariot,  in  thinking  him  wicked  above 
all  common  wickedness.  He  was  only  a com- 
mon money-lover,  and,  like  all  money-lovers, 
didn’t  understand  Christ ; — couldn’t  make  out 
the  worth  of  Him,  or  meaning  of  Him.  He  was 
horror-struck  when  he  found  that  Christ  would 
be  killed ; threw  his  money  away  instantly, 
and  hanged  himself.  How  many  of  our  pres- 
ent money-seekers,  think  you,  would  have  the 
grace  to  hang  themselves,  whoever  was  killed  ? 
4 


5° 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


But  Judas  was  a common,  selfish,  muddle* 
headed,  pilfering  fellow  ; his  hand  always  in 
the  bag  of  the  poor,  not  caring  for  them.  He 
didn’t  understand  Christ ; — yet  believed  in 
Him,  much  more  than  most  of  us  do ; had 
seen  Him  do  miracles,  thought  He  was  quite 
strong  enough  to  shift  for  Himself,  and  he, 
Judas,  might  as  well  make  his  own  little  by- 
perquisites out  of  the  affair.  Christ  would 
come  out  of  it  well  enough,  and  he  have  his 
thirty  pieces.  Now,  that  is  the  money-seeker’s 
idea,  all  over  the  world.  He  doesn’t  hate 
Christ,  but  can’t  understand  Him — doesn’t 
care  for  Him — sees  no  good  in  that  benevo- 
lent business ; makes  his  own  little  job  out  of 
it  at  all  events,  come  what  will.  And  thus, 
out  of  every  mass  of  men,  you  have  a certain 
number  of  bag-men — your  “ fee  first  ” men, 
whose  main  object  is  to  make  money.  And 
they  do  make  it — make  it  in  all  sorts  of  unfair 
ways,  chiefly  by  the  weight  and  force  of  money 
itself,  or  what  is  called  the  power  of  capital ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  power  which  money,  once 
obtained,  has  over  the  labor  of  the  poor,  so 
that  the  capitalist  can  take  all  its  produce  to 
himself,  except  the  laborer’s  food.  That  is 


WORK. 


51 

the  modern  Judas’s  way  of  “ carrying  the  bag,” 
and  bearing  what  is  put  therein. 

Nay,  but  (it  is  asked)  how  is  that  an  unfair 
advantage  ? Has  not  the  man  who  has 
worked  for  the  money  a right  to  use  it  as  he 
best  can  ? No ; in  this  respect,  money  is  now 
exactly  what  mountain  promontories  over 
public  roads  were  in  old  times.  The  barons 
fought  for  then  fairly : — the  strongest  and 
cunningest  got  them ; then  fortified  them ; 
and  made  every  one  who  passed  below  pay 
toll.  Well,  capital  now  is  exactly  what  crags 
were  then.  Men  fight  fairly  (we 'will,  at  least, 
grant  so  much,  though  it  is  more  than  we 
ought)  for  their  money  ; but,  once  having  got 
it,  the  fortified  millionaire  can  make  every- 
body who  passes  below  pay  toll  to  his  million, 
and  build  another  tower  of  his  money  castle. 
And  I can  tell  you,  the  poor  vagrants  by  the 
roadside  suffer  now  quite  as  much  from  the  bag- 
baron,  as  ever  they  did  from  the  crag-baron. 
Bags  and  crags  have  just  the  same  result  on 
rags.  I have  not  time,  however,  to-night  to 
show  you  in  how  many  ways  the  power  of 
capital  is  unjust ; but  this  one  great  principle  I 
have  to  assert — you  will  find  it  quite  indispu- 
tably true — that  whenever  money  is  the  prim 


ran  ms  :n 


52 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


cipal  object  of  life  with  either  man  or  nation, 
it  is  both  got  ill,  and  spent  ill ; and  does  harm 
both  in  the  getting  and  spending ; but  when 
it  is  not  the  principal  object,  it  and  all  other 
things  will  be  well  got,  and  well  spent.  And 
here  is  the  test,  with  every  man,  of  whether 
money  is  the  principal  object  with  him,  or 
not.  If  in  mid-life  he  could  pause  and  say, 
“ Now  I have  enough  to  live  upon,  I’ll 
live  upon  it ; and  having  well  earned  it, 
I will  also  well  spend  it,  and  go  out  of 
the  world  poor,  as  I came  into  it,”  then 
money  is  not  principal  with  him ; but  if, 
having  enough  to  live  upon  in  the  manner  be- 
fitting his  character  and  rank,  he  still  wants 
to  make  more,  and  to  die  rich,  then  money  is 
the  principal  object  with  him,  and  it  becomes 
a curse  to  himself,  and  generally  to  those 
who  spend  it  after  him.  For  you  know  it 
must  be  spent  some  day  ; the  only  question  is 
whether  the  man  who  makes  it  shall  spend  it, 
or  some  one  else.  And  generally  it  is  better 
for  the  maker  to  spend  it,  for  he  will  know 
best  its  value  and  use.  This  is  the  true  law 
of  life.  And  if  a man  does  not  choose  thus  to 
spend  his  money,  he  must  either  hoard  it  or 
lend  it,  and  the  worst  thing  he  can  generally 


WORK, 


S3 


do  is  to  lend  it ; for  borrowers  are  nearly 
always  ill-spenders,  and  it  is  with  lent  money 
that  all  evil  is  mainly  done  and  all  unjust  war 
protracted. 

For  observe  what  the  real  fact  is,  respecting 
loans  to  foreign  military  governments,  and 
how  strange  it  is.  If  your  little  boy  came  to 
you  to  ask  for  money  to  spend  in  squibs  and 
crackers,,  you  would  think  twice  before  you 
gave  it  him  ; and  you  would  have  some  idea  that 
it  was  wasted,  when  you  saw  it  fly  off  in  fire- 
works, even  though  he  did  no  mischief  with  it. 
But  the  Russian  children,  and  Austrian  chil- 
dren, come  to  you,  borrowing  money,  not  to 
spend  in  innocent  squibs,  but  in  cartridges 
and  bayonets  to  attack  you  in  India  with, 
and  to  keep  down  all  noble  life  in  Italy  with, 
and  to  murder  Polish  women  and  children 
with  ; and  that  you  will  give  at  once,  because 
they  pay  you  interest  for  it.  Now,  in  order 
to  pay  you  that  interest,  they  must  tax  every 
working  peasant  in  their  dominions  ; and  on 
that  work  you  live.  You  therefore  at  once 
rob  the  Austrian  peasant,  assassinate  or 
banish  the  Polish  peasant,  and  you  live  on  the 
produce  of  the  theft,  and  the  bribe  for  the 
assassination  ! That  is  the  broad  fact — that 


54  THE  crown  of  wild  olive . 

is  the  practical  meaning  of  your  foreign  loans, 
and  of  most  large  interest  of  money ; and  then 
you  quarrel  with  Bishop  Colenso,  forsooth, 
as  if  he  denied  the  Bible,  and  you  believed  it ! 
though,  wretches  as  you  are,  every  deliberate 
act  of  your  lives  is  a new  defiance  of  its 
primary  orders  ; and  as  if,  for  most  of  the  rich 
men  of  England  at  this  moment,  it  were  not 
indeed  to  be  desired,  as  the  best  thing  at 
least  for  them , that  the  Bible  should  not  be 
true,  since  against  them  these  words  are 
written  in  it : “ The  rust  of  your  gold  and 
silver  shall  be  a witness  against  you,  and 
shall  eat  your  flesh,  as  it  were  fire.” 

III.  I pass  now  to  our  third  condition  of 
separation,  between  the  men  who  work  with 
the  hand,  and  those  who  work  with  the  head. 

And  here  we  have  at  last  an  inevitable  dis- 
tinction. There  must  be  work  done  by  the 
arms,  or  none  of  us  could  live.  There  must 
be  work  done  by  the  brains,  or  the  life  we  get 
would  not  be  worth  having.  And  the  same 
men  cannot  do  both.  There  is  rough  work  to 
be  done,  and  rough  men  must  do  it ; there  is 
gentle  work  to  be  done,  and  gentlemen  must 
do  it ; and  it  is  physically  impossible  that  one 
class  should  do,  or  divide,  the  work  of  th# 


WORK. 


ss 


other.  And  it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  conceal 
this  sorrowful  fact  by  fine  words,  and  to  talk 
to  the  workman  about  the  honorableness  of 
manual  labor,  and  the  dignity  of  humanity. 
That  is  a grand  old  proverb  of  Sancho 
Panza’s,  “ Fine  words  butter  no  parsnips  ; ” 
and  I can  tell  you  that,  all  over  England  just 
now,  you  workmen  are  buying  a great  deal  too 
much  butter  at  that  dairy.  Rough  work,  hon- 
orable or  not,  takes  the  life  out  of  us;  and 
the  man  who  has  been  heaving  clay  out  of  a 
ditch  all  day,  or  driving  an  express  train 
against  the  north  wind  all  night,  or  holding  a 
collier’s  helm  in  a gale  on  a lee-shore,  or  whirl- 
ing white-hot  iron  at  a furnace  mouth,  that 
man  is  not  the  same  at  the  end  of  his  day,  or 
night,  as  one  who  has  been  sitting  in  a quiet 
room,  with  everything  comfortable  about  him, 
reading  books,  or  classing  butterflies,  or  paint- 
ing pictures.  If  it  is  any  comfort  to  you  to 
be  told  that  the  rough  work  is  the  more  honor- 
able of  the  two,  I should  be  sorry  to  take  that 
much  of  consolation  from  you ; and  in  some 
sense  I need  not.  The  rough  work  is  at  all 
events  real,  honest,  and,  generally,  though  not 
always,  useful ; while  the  fine  work  is,  a great 
deal  of  it,  foolish  and  false  as  well  as  fine,  and 


56  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

therefore  dishonorable : but  when  both  kinds 
are  equally  well  and  worthily  done,  the  head’s 
is  the  noble  work,  and  the  hand’s  the  ignoble ; 
and  of  all  hand  work  whatsoever,  necessary 
for  the  maintenance  of  life,  those  old  words, 
“ In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  thou  shalt  eat  bread,” 
indicate  that  the  inherent  nature  of  it  is  one  of 
calamity  ; and  that  the  ground,  cursed  for  our 
sake,  casts  also  some  shadow  of  degradation 
into  our  contest  with  its  thorn  and  its  thistle ; 
so  that  all  nations  have  held  their  days  honor- 
able, or  “ holy,”  and  constituted  them  “ holy- 
days,”  “ or  holidays,”  by  making  them  days  of 
rest;  and  the  promise,  which,  among  all  our 
distant  hopes,  seems  to  cast  the  chief  bright- 
ness over  death,  is  that  blessing  of  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord,  that  “ they  rest  from 
their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow 
them.” 

And  thus  the  perpetual  question  and  con- 
test must  arise,  who  is  to  do  this  rough  work  ? 
and  how  is  the  worker  of  it  to  be  comforted, 
redeemed,  and  rewarded  ? and  what  kind  of 
play  should  he  have,  and  what  rest,  in  this 
world,  sometimes,  as  well  as  in  the  next  ? 
Well,  my  good  working  friends,  these  ques- 
tions will  take  a little  time  to  answer  yet. 


WORK. 


57 


They  must  be  answered  : all  good  men  are 
occupied  with  them,  and  all  honest  thinkers. 
There’s  grand  head  work  doing  about  them  ; 
but  much  must  be  discovered,  and  much  at- 
tempted in  vain,  before  anything  decisive  can 
be  told  you.  Only  note  these  few  particulars, 
which  are  already  sure. 

As  to  the  distribution  of  the  hard  work.  N one 
of  us,  or  very  few  of  us,  do  either  hard  or  soft 
work  because  we  think  we  ought ; but  because 
we  have  chanced  to  fall  into  the  way  of  it, 
and  cannot  help  ourselves.  Now,  nobody 
does  anything  well  that  they  cannot  help 
doing  : work  is  only  done  well  when  it  is  done 
with  a will ; and  no  man  has  a thoroughly 
sound  will  unless  he  knows  he  is  doing  what 
he  should,  and  is  in  his  place.  And,  depend 
upon  it,  all  work  must  be  done  at  last,  not  in 
a disorderly,  scrambling,  doggish  way,  but  in 
an  ordered,  soldierly,  human  way — a lawful 
way.  Men  are  enlisted  for  the  labor  that 
kills — the  labor  of  war  : they  are  counted, 
trained,  fed,  dressed,  and  praised  for  that. 
Let  them  be  enlisted  also  for  the  labor  that 
feeds : let  them  be  counted,  trained,  fed, 
dressed,  praised  for  that.  Teach  the  plough 
exercise  as  carefully  as  you  do  the  sword  ex- 


58  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

ercise,  and  let  the  officers  of  troops  of  life  be 
held  as  much  gentlemen  as  the  officers  of 
troops  of  death ; and  all  is  done  : but  neither 
this,  nor  any  other  right  thing,  can  be  accom- 
plished— you  can’t  even  see  your  way  to  it — 
unless,  first  of  all,  both  servant  and  master 
are  resolved  that,  come  what  will  of  it,  they 
will  do  each  other  justice.  People  are ‘per- 
petually squabbling  about  what  will  be  best  to 
do,  or  easiest  to  do,  or  adviseablest  to  do,  or 
profitablest  to  do ; but  they  never,  so  far  as  I 
hear  them  talk,  ever  ask  what  it  is  just  to  do. 
And  it  is  the  law  of  heaven  that  you  shall  not 
be  able  to  judge  what  is  wise  or  easy,  unles^ 
you  are  first  resolved  to  judge  what  is  just, 
and  to  do  it.  This  is  the  one  thing  constantly 
reiterated  by  our  Master — the  order  of  all 
others  that  is  given  oftenest — “ Do  justice  and 
judgment.”  That’s  your  Bible  order ; that’s 
the  “ Service  of  God,”  not  praying  nor  psalm- 
singing. You  are  told,  indeed,  to  sing  psalms 
when  you  are  merry,  and  to  pray  when  you 
need  anything ; and,  by  the  perversion  of  the 
Evil  Spirit,  we  get  to  think  that  praying  and 
psalm-singing  are  “ service.”  If  a child  finds 
itself  in  want  of  anything,  it  runs  in  and  asks 
its  father  for  it — does  it  call  that,  doing  its 


WORK. 


59 


father  a service  ? If,  it  begs  for  a toy  or  a 
piece  of  cake — does  it  call  that  serving  its 
father  ? That,  with  God,  is  prayer,  and  He 
likes  to  hear  it : He  likes  you  to  ask  Him  for 
cake  when  you  want  it ; but  He  doesn’t  call  that 
“ serving  Him.”  Begging  is  not  serving : 
God  likes  mere  beggars  as  little  as  you  do — 
He  likes  honest  servants,  not  beggars.  So 
when  a child  loves  its  father  very  much,  and 
is  very  happy,  it  may  sing  little  songs  about 
him ; but  it  doesn’t  call  that  serving  its 
father;  neither  is  singing  songs  about  God, 
serving  God.  It  is  enjoying  ourselves,  if  it’s 
anything ; most  probably  it  is  nothing ; but  if 
it’s  anything,  it  is  serving  ourselves,  not  God. 
And  yet  we  are  impudent  enough  to  call  our 
beggings  and  chauntings  “ Divine  Service  : ” we 
say  “Divine  service  will  be  ‘performed’ 
(that’s  our  word — the  form  of  it  gone  through) 
“ at  eleven  o’clock.”  Alas  ! — unless  we  per- 
form Divine  service  in  every  willing  act  of  our 
life,  we  never  perform  it  at  all.  The  one 
Divine  work — the  one  ordered  sacrifice — is  to 
do  justice ; and  it  is  the  last  we  are  ever  in- 
clined to  do.  Anything  rather  than  that ! 
As  much  charity  as  you  choose,  but  no  justice, 
“Nay,”  you  will  say,  “charity  is  greater  than 


6o  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


justice.”  Yes,  it  is  greater ; it  is  the  summit 
of  justice — it  is  the  temple  of  which  justice  is 
the  foundation.  But  you  can’t  have  the  top 
without  the  bottom;  you  cannot  build  upon 
charity.  You  must  build  upon  justice,  for  this 
main  reason,  that  you  have  not,  at  first,  charity 
to  build  with.  It  is  the  last  reward  of  good 
work.  Do  justice  to  your  brother  (you  can  do 
that  whether  you  love  him  or  not),  and  you 
will  come  to  love  him.  But  do  injustice  to 
him,  because  you  don’t  love  him  ; and  you  will 
come  to  hate  him.  It  is  all  very  fine  to  thin> 
you  can  build  upon  charity  to  begin  with  * 
but  you  will  find  all  you  have  got  to  begin 
with,  begins  at  home,  and  is  essentially  love 
of  yourself.  You  well-to-do  people,  for  in- 
stance, who  are  here  to-night,  will  go  to 
“ Divine  service  ” next  Sunday,  all  nice  and 
tidy,  and  your  little  children  will  have  their 
tight  little  Sunday  boots  on,  and  lovely  little 
Sunday  feathers  in  their  hats;  and  you’ll 
think,  complacently  and  piously,  how  lovely 
they  look  ! So  they  do  : and  you  love  them 
heartily,  and  you  like  sticking  feathers  in  their 
hats.  That’s  all  right : that  is  charity ; but  it 
is  charity  beginning  at  home.  Then  you  will 
come  to  the  poor  little  crossing-sweeper,  got 


WORK. 


61 


ttp  also, — it,  in  its  Sunday  dress, — the  dirtiest 
rags  it  has, — that  it  may  beg  the  better : we 
shall  give  it  a penny,  and  think  how  good  we 
are.  That’s  charity  going  abroad.  But  what 
does  Justice  say,  walking  and  watching  near 
us  ? Christian  Justice  has  been  strangely 
mute,  and  seemingly  blind  ; and,  if  not  blind, 
decrepit,  this  many  a day  : she  keeps  her  ac- 
counts still,  however — quite  steadily — doing 
them  at  nights,  carefully,  with  her  bandage  off, 
and  through  acutest  spectacles  (the  only 
modern  scientific  invention  she  cares  about). 
You  must  put  your  ear  down  ever  so  close  to 
her  lips  to  hear  her  speak  ; and  then  you  will 
start  at  what  she  first  whispers,  for  it  will  cer- 
tainly be,  “ Why  shouldn’t  that  little  cross- 
ing-sweeper have  a feather  on  its  head,  as  well 
as  your  own  child  ? ” Then  you  may  ask  Jus- 
tice in  an  amazed  manner,  “ How  she  can  pos- 
sibly be  so  foolish  as  to  think  children  could 
sweep  crossings  with  feathers  on  their  heads  ? ” 
Then  you  stoop  again,  and  Justice  says — still 
in  her  dull,  stupid  way — “ Then,  why  don’t 
you,  every  other  Sunday,  leave  your  child  to 
sweep  the  crossing,  and  take  the  little  sweeper 
to  church  in  a hat  and  feather  ? ” Mercy  on 
us  (you  think),  what  will  she  say  next  ? And 


62  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

you  answer,  of  course,  that  “ you  don’t,  because 
everybody  ought  to  remain  content  in  the 
position  in  which  Providence  has  placed  them.” 
Ah,  my  friends,  that’s  the  gist  of  the  whole 
question.  Did  Providence  put  them  in  that 
position,  or  did  you  ? You  knock  a man 
into  a ditch,  and  then  you  tell  him  to  remain 
content  in  the  “ position  in  which  Providence 
has  placed  him.”  That’s  modern  Christianity 
You  say — “We  did  not  knock  him  into  the 
ditch.”  How  do  you  know  what  you  have 
done,  or  are  doing  ? That’s  just  what  we 
have  all  got  to  know,  and  what  we  shall  never 
know  until  the  question  with  us  every  morning, 
is,  not  how  to  do  the  gainful  thing,  but  how  to 
do  the  just  thing ; nor  until  we  are  at  least  so 
far  on  the  way  to  being  Christian,  as  to  have 
understood  that  maxim  of  the  poor  half-way 
Mahometan,  “ One  hour  in  the  execution  of 
justice  is  worth  seventy  years  of  prayer.” 
Supposing,  then,  we  have  it  determined  with 
appropriate  justice,  who  is  to  do  the  hand 
work,  the  next  questions  must  be  how  the 
hand-workers  are  to  be  paid,  and  how  they  are 
to  be  refreshed,  and  what  play  they  are  to 
have.  Now,  the  possible  quantity  of  play 
depends  on  the  possible  quantity  of  pay  ; and 


WORK. 


63 


the  quantity  of  pay  is  not  a matter  for  con- 
sideration to'  hand-workers  only,  but  to  all 
workers.  Generally,  good,  useful  work, 
whether  of  the  hand  or  head,  is  either  ill-paid, 
or  not  paid  at  all.  I don’t  say  it  should  be  so, 
but  it  always  is  so.  People,  as  a rule,  only 
pay  for  being  amused  or  being  cheated,  not  for 
being  served.  Five  thousand  a year  to  your 
talker,  and  a shilling  a day  to  your  fighter, 
digger,  and  thinker,  is  the  rule.  None  of  the 
best  head  work  in  art,  literature,  or  science,  is 
ever  paid  for.  How  much  do  you  think  Homer 
got  for  his  Iliad  ? or  Dante  for  his  Paradise  ? 
only  bitter  bread  and  salt,  and  going  up  and 
down  other  people’s  stairs.  In  science,  the 
man  who  discovered  the  telescope,  and  first  saw 
heaven,  was  paid  with  a dungeon  ; the  man 
who  invented  the  microscope,  and  first  saw 
earth,  died  of  starvation,  driven  from  his 
home  : it  is  indeed  very  clear  that  God  means 
all  thoroughly  good  work  and  talk  to  be  done 
for  nothing.  Baruch,  the  scribe,  did  not  get 
a penny  a line  for  writing  Jeremiah’s  second 
roll  for  him,  I fancy ; and  St.  Stephen  did  not 
get  bishop’s  pay  for  that  long  sermon  of  his  to 
the  Pharisees  ; nothing  but  stones.  For  indeed 
that  is  the  world-father’s  proper  payment.  So 


64  THE  crown  of  wild  olive . 

surely  as  any  of  the  world’s  children  work  for 
the  world’s  good,  honestly,  with  head  and 
heart  ; and  come  to  it,  saying,  “ Give  us  a little 
bread,  just  to  keep  the  life  in  us,”  the  world- 
father  answers  them,  “ No,  my  children,  not 
bread ; a stone,  if  you  like,  or  as  many  as  you 
need,  to  keep  you  quiet.”  But  the  hand-work- 
ers are  not  so  ill  off  as  all  this  comes  to.  The 
worst  that  can  happen  to  you  is  to  break 
stones  ; not  be  broken  by  them.  And  for  you 
there  will  come  a time  for  better  payment ; 
some  day,  assuredly,  more  pence  will  be  paid 
to  Peter  the  Fisherman,  and  fewer  to  Peter  the 
Pope ; we  shall  pay  people  not  quite  so  much 
for  talking  in  Parliament  and  doing  nothing, 
as  for  holding  their  tongues  out  of  it  and  doing 
something  ; we  shall  pay  our  ploughman  a little 
more  and  our  lawyer  a little  less,  and  so  on  : 
but,  at  least,  we  may  even  now  take  care  that 
whatever  work  is  done  shall  be  fully  paid  for ; 
and  the  man  who  does  it  paid  for  it,  not  some- 
body else  ; and  that  it  shall  be  done  in  an 
orderly,  soldierly,  well-guided,  wholesome 
way,  under  good  captains  and  lieutenants  of 
labor;  and  that  it  shall  have  its  appointed 
times  of  rest,  and  enough  of  them ; and  that 
in  those  times  the  play  shall  be  wholesome 


IVORIC. 


65 


play,  not  in  theatrical  gardens,  with  tin  flowers 
and  gas  sunshine,  and  girls  dancing  because 
of  their  misery  ; but  in  true  gardens,  with  real 
flowers,  and  real  sunshine,  and  children  dancing 
because  of  their  gladness  ; so  that  truly  the 
streets  shall  be  full  (the  “ streets,”  mind  you, 
not  the  gutters)  of  children,  playing  in  the  midst 
thereof.  We  may  take  care  that  working-men 
shall  have  at  least  as  good  books  to  read  as 
anybody  else,  when  they’ve  time  to  read  them  ; 
and  as  comfortable  firesides  to  sit  at  as  anybody 
else  when  they’ve  time  to  sit  at  them.  This,  I 
think,  can  be  managed  for  you,  my  working 
friends,  in  the  good  time. 

IV.  I must  go  on,  however,  to  our  last  head, 
concerning  ourselves  all,  as  workers.  What 
is  wise  work,  and  what  is  foolish  work  ? What 
the  difference  between  sense  and  nonsense,  in 
daily  occupation  ? 

Well,  wise  work  is,  briefly,  work  with  God. 
Foolish  work  is  work  against  God.  And  work 
done  with  God,  which  He  will  help,  may  be 
briefly  described  as  “ Putting  in  Order  ’’—that 
is,  enforcing  God’s  law  of  order,  spiritual  and 
material,  over  men  and  things.  The  first  thing 
you  have  to  do,  essentially;  the  real  “good 
work  ” is,  with  respect  to  men,  to  enforce  jus- 

5 


66  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

tice,  and  with  respect  to  things,  to  enforce  tidi- 
ness, and  fruitfulness.  And  against  these  two 
great  human  deeds,  justice  and  order,  there 
are  perpetually  two  great  demons  contending, 
— the  devil  of  iniquity,  or  inequity,  and  the 
devil  of  disorder,  or  of  death  ; for  death  is  only 
consummation  of  disorder.  You  have  to  fight 
these  two  fiends  daily.  So  far  as  you  don’t 
fight  against  the  fiend  of  iniquity,  you  work 
for  him.  You  “ work  iniquity,”  and  the  judg- 
ment upon  you,  for  all  your  “ Lord,  Lord’s,”  will 
be  “ Depart  from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity.” 
And  so  far  as  you  do  not  resist  the  fiend  of  dis- 
order, you  work  disorder,  and  you  yourself  do 
the  work  of  Death,  which  is  sin,  and  has  for  its 
wages,  Death  himself. 

Observe  then,  all  wise  work  is  mainly  three- 
fold in  character.  It  is  honest,  useful,  and 
cheerful. 

I.  It  is  honest.  I hardly  know  anything 
more  strange  than  that  you  recognize  honesty 
in  play,  and  you  do  not  in  work.  In  your 
lightest  games,  you  have  always  some  one  to 
see  what  you  call  “ fair-play.”  In  boxing,  you 
must  hit  fair  ; in  racing,  start  fair.  Your  Eng- 
lish watchword  is  fair-play,  your  English 
hatred,  foul-play.  Did  it  ever  strike  you  that 


WORK. 


67 


you  wanted  another  watchword  also,  fair-work, 
and  another  hatred  also,  foul-work  ? Your 
prize-fighter  has  some  honor  in  him  yet ; and 
so  have  the  men  in  the  ring  round  him  : they 
will  judge  him  to  lose  the  match,  by  foul  hit- 
ting. But  your  prize-merchant  gains  his  match 
by  foul  selling,  and  no  one  cries  out  against 
that.  You  drive  a gambler  out  of  the  gam- 
bling-room who  loads  dice,  but  you  leave  a 
tradesman  in  flourishing  business  who  loads 
scales  ! For  observe,  all  dishonest  dealing  is 
loading  scales,  \yhat  does  it  matter  whether 
I get  short  weight,  adulterate  substance,  or 
dishonest  fabric  ? The  fault  in  the  fabric  is 
incomparably  the  worst  of  the  two.  Give  me 
short  measure  of  food,  and  I only  lose  by  you ; 
but  give  me  adulterate  food,  and  I die  by  you. 
Here,  then,  is  your  chief  duty,  you  workmen 
and  tradesmen — to  be  true  to  yourselves,  and 
to  us  who  would  help  you.  We  can  do  nothing 
for  you,  nor  you  for  yourselves,  without 
honesty.  Get  that,  you  get  all ; without  that, 
your  suffrages,  your  reforms,  your  free-trade 
measures,  your  institutions  of  science,  are  all 
in  vain.  It  is  useless  to  put  your  heads  to- 
gether, if  you  can’t  put  your  hearts  together. 
Shoulder  to  shoulder,  right  hand  to  right  hand, 


68  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


among  yourselves,  and  no  wrong  hand  to  any- 
body else,  and  you’ll  win  the  world  yet. 

II.  Then,  secondly,  wise  work  is  useful. 
No  man  minds,  or  ought  to  mind,  its  being 
hard,  if  only  it  comes  to  something  ; but  when 
it  is  hard,  and  comes  to  nothing  ; when  all 
our  bees’  business  turns  to  spiders’ ; and  for 
honey-comb  we  have  only  resultant  cobweb, 
blown  away  by  the  next  breeze — that  is  the 
cruel  thing  for  the  worker.  Yet  do  we  ever 
ask  ourselves,  personally,  or  even  nationally, 
whether  our  work  is  coming  to  anything  or 
not  ? We  don’t  care  to  keep  what  has  been 
nobly  done ; still  less  do  we  care  to  do  nobly 
what  others  would  keep ; and,  least  of  all,  to 
make  the  work  itself  useful  instead  of  deadly 
to  the  doer,  so  as  to  use  his  life  indeed,  but 
not  to  waste  it.  Of  all  wastes,  the  greatest 
waste  that  you  can  commit  is  the  waste  of 
labor.  If  you  went  down  in  the  morning  into 
your  dairy,  and  you  found  that  your  youngest 
child  had  got  d wn  before  you;  and  that  he 
and  the  cat  were  at  play  together,  and  that  he 
had  poured  out  all  the  cream  on  the  floor  for 
the  cat  to  lap  up,  you  would  scold  the  child, 
and  be  sorry  the  milk  was  wasted.  But  if, 
instead  of  wooden  bowls  with  milk  in  them, 


WORK. 


69 


there  are  golden  bowls  with  human  life  in 
them,  and  instead  of  the  cat  to  play  with — the 
devil  to  play  with ; and  you  yourself  the 
player;  and  instead  of  leaving  that  golden 
bowl  to  be  broken  by  God  at  the  fountain,  you 
break  it  in  the  dust  yourself,  and  pour  the 
human  blood  out  on  the  gr  und  for  the  fiend 
to  lick  up — that  is  no  waste ! What ! you 
perhaps  think,  “ to  waste  the  labor  of  men  is 
not  to  kill  them.”  Is  it  not  ? I should  like  to 
know  how  you  could  kill  them  more  utterly — 
kill  them  with  second  deaths  ? It  is  the 
slightest  way  of  killing  to  stop  a man’s  breath. 
Nay,  the  hunger,  and  the  cold,  and  the  little 
whistling  bullets — our  love-messengers  be- 
tween nation  and  nation — have  brought 
pleasant  messages  from  us  to  many  a man 
before  now ; orders  of  sweet  release,  and 
leave  at  last  to  go  where  he  will  be  most 
welcome  and  most  happy.  At  the  worst  you 
do  but  shorten  his  life,  you  do  not  corrupt 
his  life.  But  if  you  put  him  to  base  labor,  if 
you  bind  his  thoughts,  if  you  blind  his  eyes,  if 
you  blunt  his  hopes,  if  you  steal  his  joys,  if 
you  stunt  his  body,  and  blast  his  soul,  and  at 
last  leave  him  not  so  much  as  to  reap  the 
poor  fruit  of  his  degradation,  but  gather  that 


70  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

for  yourself,  and  dismiss  him  to  the  grave, 
when  you  have  done  with  him,  having,  so  far 
as  in  you  lay,  made  the  walls  of  that  grave 
everlasting  (though,  indeed,  I fancy  the  goodly 
bricks  of  some  of  our  family  vaults  will  hold 
closer  in  the  resurrection  day  than  the  sod 
over  the  laborer’s  head),  this  you  think  is  no 
waste,  and  no  sin  ! 

III.  Then,  lastly,  wise  work  is  cheerful, 
as  a child’s  wofk  is.  And  now  I want  you  to 
take  one  thought  home  with  you,  and  let  it 
stay  with  you. 

Everybody  in  this  room  has  been  taught  to 
pray  daily,  “ Thy  kingdom  come.”  Now,  if  we 
hear  a man  swear  in  the  streets,  we  think  it 
very  wrong,  and  say  he  “ takes  God’s  name  in 
vain.”  But  there’s  a twenty  times  worse  way 
of  taking  His  name  in  vain  than  that.  It  is  to 
ask  God  for  what  we  don't  want . He  doesn’t 
like  that  sort  of  prayer.  If  you  don’t  want  a 
thing,  don’t  ask  for  it : such  asking  is  the 
worst  mockery  of  your  King  you  can  mock 
Him  with  ; the  soldiers  striking  Him  on  the 
head  with  the  reed  was  nothing  to  that.  If 
you  do  not  wish  for  His  kingdom,  don’t  pray 
for  it.  But  if  you  do,  you  must  do  more  than 
pray  for  it ; you  must  work  for  it.  And,  to 


WORK. 


7* 


work  for  it,  you  must  know  what  it  is:  we 
have  all  prayed  for  it  many  a day  without 
thinking.  Observe,  it  is  a kingdom  that  is  to 
come  to  us  ; we  are  not  to  go  to  it.  Also,  it  is 
not  to  be  a kingdom  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living.  Also,  it  is  not  to  come  all  at  once,  but 
quietly  ; nobody  knows  how  “ The  kingdom  of 
God  cometh  not  with  observation.”  Also, 
it  is  not  to  come  outside  of  us,  but  in  the 
hearts  of  us  : “ the  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you.”  And  being  within  us,  it  is  not  a thing 
to  be  seen,  but  to  be  felt;  and  though  it 
brings  all  substance  of  good  with  it,  it  does 
not  consist  in  that : “ the  kingdom  of  God  is 
not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness,  peace, 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost : ” joy,  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  holy,  healthful,  and  helpful  Spirit. 
Now,  if  we  want  to  work  for  this  kingdom, 
and  to  bring  it,  and  enter  into  it,  there’s  just 
one  condition  to  be  first  accepted.  You  must 
enter  it  as  children,  or  not  at  all ; “ Whosoever 
will  not  receive  it  as  a little  -child  shall  not 
enter  therein.”  And  again,  “ Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them 
not,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.” 

Of  such,  observe.  Not  of  children  them- 
selves, but  of  such  as  children.  I believe 


72 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


most  mothers  who  read  that  text  think  that  all 
heaven  is  to  be  full  of  babies.  But  that’s  not 
so.  There  will  be  children  there,  but  the 
hoary  head  is  the  crown.  “ Length  of  days, 
and  long  life  and  peace,”  that  is  the  blessing, 
not  to  die  in  babyhood.  Children  die  but  for 
their  parent’s  sins  ; God  means  them  to  live, 
but  He  can’t  let  them  always  ; then  they  have 
their  earlier  place  in  heaven  : and  the  little 
child  of  David,  vainly  prayed  for ; — the  little 
child  of  Jeroboam,  killed  by  its  mother’s  step 
on  its  own  threshold, — they  will  be  there.  But 
weary  old  David,  and  weary  old  Barzillai,  hav- 
ing learned  children’s  lessons  at  last,  'will  be 
there  too  : and  the  one  question  for  *is  all, 
young  or  old,  is,  have  we  learned  our  child’s 
lesson  ? it  is  the  character  of  children  we  want, 
and  must  gain  at  our  peril ; let  us  see,  briefly, 
in  what  it  consists. 

The  first  character  of  right  childhood  is  that 
it  is  Modest.  A well-bred  child  does  not 
think  it  can  teach  its  parents,  or  that  it  knows 
everything.  It  may  think  its  father  and 
mother  know  everything, — perhaps  that  all 
grown-up  people  know  everything;  very  cer- 
tainly it  is  sure  that  it  does  not.  And  it  is 
always  asking  questions,  and  wanting  to  know 


WORK. 


73 


more.  Well,  that  is  the  first  character  of  a 
good  and  wise  man  at  his  work.  To  know 
that  he  knows  very  little  ; — to  perceive  that 
there  are  many  above  him  wiser  than  he  ; and 
to  be  always  asking  questions,  wanting  to 
learn,  not  to  teach.  No  one  ever  teaches  well 
who  wants  to  teach,  or  governs  well  who  wants 
to  govern  ; it  is  an  old  saying  (Plato’s,  but  I 
know  not  if  his,  first),  and  as  wise  as  old. 

Then,  the  second  character  of  right  child- 
hood is  to  be  Faithful.  Perceiving  that  its 
father  knows  best  what  is  good  for  it,  and 
having  found  always,  when  it  has  tried  its 
own  way  against  his,  that  he  was  right  and  it 
was  wrong,  a noble  child  trusts  him  at  last 
wholly,  gives  him  its  hand,  and  will  walk 
blindfold  with  him,  if  he  bids  it.  And  that  is 
the  true  character  of  all  good  men  also,  as 
obedient  workers,  or  soldiers  under  captains. 
They  must  trust  their  captains ; — they  are 
bound  for  their  lives  to  choose  none  but  those 
whom  they  can  trust.  Then,  they  are  not 
always  to  be  thinking  that  what  seems  strange 
to  them,  or  wrong  in  what  they  are  desired  to 
do,  is  strange  or  wrong.  They  know  their 
captain : where  he  leads  they  must  follow, 
what  he  bids,  they  must  do  ; and  without  this 


74  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

trust  and  faith,  without  this  captainship  and 
soldiership,  no  great  deed,  no  great  salvation, 
is  possible  to  man.  Among  all  the  nations  it 
is  only  when  this  faith  is  attained  by  them 
that  they  become  great:  the  Jew,  the  Greek, 
and  the  Mahometan,  agree  at  least  in  testify- 
ing to  this.  It  was  a deed  of  this  absolute 
trust  which  made  Abraham  the  father  of  the 
faithful ; it  was  the  declaration  of  the  power  of 
God  as  captain  over  all  men,  and  the  accept- 
ance of  a leader  appointed  by  Him  as  com- 
mander of  the  faithful,  which  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  whatever  national  power  yet  exists  in 
the  East ; and  the  deed  of  the  Greeks,  which 
has  become  the  type  of  unselfish  and  noble 
soldiership  to  all  lands,  and  to  all  times,  was 
commemorated,  on  the  tomb  of  those  who 
gave  their  lives  to  do  it,  in  the  most  pathetic, 
so  far  as  I know,  or  can  feel,  of  all  human 
utterances  : “ Oh,  stranger,  go  and  tell  our 
people  that  we  are  lying  here,  having  obeyed 
their  words.” 

Then  the  third  character  of  right  childhood 
is  to  be  Loving  and  Generous.  Give  a little 
love  to  a child,  and  you  get  a great  deal  back. 
It  loves  everything  near  it,  when  it  is  a right 
kind  of  child — would  hurt  nothing,  would 


WORK. 


75 


give  the  best  it  has  away,  always,  if  you  need 
it — does  not  lay  plans  for  getting  everything 
in  the  house  for  itself,  and  delights  in  helping 
people  ; you  cannot  please  it  so  much  as  by 
giving  it  a chance  of  being  useful,  in  ever  so 
little  a way. 

And  because  of  all  these  characters,  lastly, 
it  is  Cheerful.  Putting  its  trust  in  its  father, 
it  is  careful  for  nothing — being  full  of  love  to 
every  creature,  it  is  happy  always,  whether  in 
its  play  or  in  its  duty.  Well,  that’s  the  great 
worker’s  character  also.  Taking  no  thought 
for  the  morrow ; taking  thought  only  for  the 
duty  of  the  day  ; trusting  somebody  else  to  take 
care  of  to-morrow ; knowing  indeed  what  labor 
is,  but  not  what  sorrow  is  ; and  always  ready 
for  play, — beautiful  play, — for  lovely  human 
play  is  like  the  play  of  the  Sun.  There’s  a 
worker  for  you.  He,  steady  to  his  time,  is  set 
as  a strong  man  to  run  his  course,  but  also, 
he  rejoiceth  as  a strong  man  to  run  his  course. 
See  how  he  plays  in  the  morning,  with  the 
mists  below,  and  the  clouds  above,  with  a ray 
here  and  a flash  there,  and  a shower  of  jewels 
everywhere  ; — that’s  the  Sun’s  play  ; and  great 
human  play  is  like  his — all  various — all  full 
of  light  and  life,  and  tender,  as  the  dew  of  the 
morning. 


76  THE  CROWN  OR  WILD  OLIVE. 

So  then,  you  have  the  chilcTs  character  in 
these  four  things — Humility,  Faith,  Charity, 
and  Cheerfulness.  That’s  what  you  have  got 
to  be  converted  to.  “ Except  ye  be  converted 
and  become  as  little  children  ” — You  hear 
much  of  conversion  nowadays;  but  people 
always  seem  to  think  you  have  got  to  be  made 
wretched  by  conversion, — to  be  converted  to 
long  faces.  No,  friends,  you  have  got  to  be 
converted  to  short  ones  ; you  have  to  repent 
into  childhood,  to  repent  into  delight,  and  de- 
lightsomeness. You  can’t  go  into  a convent- 
icle but  you’ll  hear  plenty  of  talk  of  back- 
sliding. Backsliding,  indeed  ! I can  tell  you, 
on  the  ways  most  of  us  go,  the  faster  we  slide 
back  the  better.  Slide  back  into  the  cradle, 
if  going  on  is  into  the  grave — back,  I tell  you  ; 
back  — out  of  your  long  faces,  and  into  your 
long  clothes.  It  is  among  children  only,  and 
as  children  only,  that  you  will  find  medicine 
for  your  healing  and  true  wisdom  for  your 
teaching.  There  is  poison  in  the  counsels  of 
the  man  of  this  world ; the  words  they  speak 
are  all  bitterness,  “ the  poison  of  asps  is  under 
their  lips,”  but  “ the  sucking  child  shall  play 
by  the  hole  of  the  asp.”  There  is  death  in  the 
looks  of  men.  “ Their  eyes  are  privily  set 


WORK. 


77 


against  the  poor  ; ” they  are  as  the  uncharm- 
able  serpent,  the  cockatrice,  which  slew  by 
seeing.  But  “ the  weaned  child  shall  lay  his 
hand  on  the  cockatrice  den.”  There  is  death 
in  the  steps  of  men  : “ their  feet  are  swift  to 
shed  blood  ; they  have  compassed  us  in  our 
steps  like  the  lion  that  is  greedy  of  his  prey, 
and  the  young  lion  lurking  in  secret  places,” 
but,  in  that  kingdom,  the  wolf  shall  lie  down 
with  the  lamb,  and  the  fading  with  the  lion, 
and  “ a little  child  shall  lead  them.”  There 
is  death  in  the  thoughts  of  men ; the  world  is 
one  wide  riddle  to  them,  darker  and  darker  as 
it  draws  to  a close ; but  the  secret  of  it  is 
known  to  the  child,  and  the  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth  is  most  to  be  thanked  in  that  “ He 
has  hidden  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  has  revealed  them  unto  babes.” 
Yes,  and  there  is  death — infinitude  of  death 
in  the  principalities  and  powers  of  men.  As 
far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west,  so  far  our  sins 
are — not  set  from  us,  but  multiplied  around 
us : the  Sun  himself,  think  you  he  now  “ re- 
joices ” to  run  his  course,  when  he  plunges 
westward  to  the  horizon,  so  widely  red,  not 
with  clouds,  but  blood  ? And  it  will  be  red 
more  widely  yet.  Whatever  drought  of  the 


78  7 HE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

early  and  latter  rain  may  be,  there  will  be  none 
of  that  red  rain.  You  fortify  yourselves  against 
it  in  vain ; the  enemy  and  avenger  will  be 
upon  you  also,  unless  you  learn  that  it  is  not 
out  of  the  mouths  of  the  knitted  gun,  or  the 
smoothed  rifle,  but  “ out  of  the  mouths  of 
babes  and  sucklings  ” that  the  strength  is  or- 
dained, which  shall  “ still  the  enemy  and 
avenger.” 


LECTURE  II. 

TRAFFIC. 


1 


I 


LECTURE  II. 


TRAFFIC. 

(. Delivered  in  the  Town  Hall,  Bradford .) 

My  good  Yorkshire  friends,  you  have  asked 
me  down  here  among  your  hills  that  I might 
talk  to  you  about  this  Exchange  you  are  going 
to  build  ; but  earnestly  and  seriously  asking 
you  to  pardon  me,  I am  going  to  do  nothing 
of  the  kind.  I cannot  talk,  or  at  least  can  Say 
very  little,  about  this  same  Exchange.  I must 
talk  of  quite  other  things,  though  not  un- 
willingly ; — I could  not  deserve  your  pardon, 
if  when  you  invited  me  to  speak  on  one  sub- 
ject, I wilfully  spoke  on  another.  But  I can- 
not speak,  to  purpose,  of  anything  about 
which  I do  not  care ; and  most  simply  and 
sorrowfully  I have  to  tell  you,  in  the  outset, 
that  I do  not  care  about  this  Exchange  of 
yours. 

If,  however,  when  you  sent  me  your  invita- 
tion, I had  answered,  “ I won’t  come,  I don’t 
6 81 


82  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

care  about  the  Exchange  of  Bradford,”  you 
would  have  been  justly  offended  with  me,  not 
knowing  the  reason  of  so  blunt  a carelessness. 
So  I have  come  down,  hoping  that  you  will 
patiently  let  me  tell  you  why,  on  this,  and 
many  other  such  occasions,  I now  remain 
silent,  when  formerly  I should  have  caught  at 
the  opportunity  of  speaking  to  a gracious  au- 
dience. 

In  a word,  then,  I do  not  care  about  this 
Exchange, — because  you  don't ; and  because 
you  know  perfectly  well  I cannot  make  you. 
Look  at  the  essential  circumstances  of  the 
case,  which  you,  as  business  men,  know  per- 
fectly well,  though  perhaps  you  think  I forget 
them.  You  are  going  to  spend  30,000/., 
which  to  you,  collectively,  is  nothing  ; the  buy- 
ing a new  coat  is,  as  to  the  cost  of  it,  a much 
more  important  matter  of  consideration  to  me 
than  building  a new  Exchange  is  to  you.  But 
you  think  you  may  as  well  have  the  right 
thing  for  your  money.  You  know  there  are  a 
great  many  odd  styles  of  architecture  about ; 
you  don’t  want  to  do  anything  ridiculous  ; 
you  hear  of  me,  among  others,  as  a respectable 
architectural  man-milliner  : and  you  send  for 
me,  that  I may  tell  you  the  leading  fashion ; 


TRAFFIC.  83 

and  what  is,  in  our  shops,  for  the  moment,  the 
newest  and  sweetest  thing  in  pinnacles. 

Now,  pardon  me  for  telling  you  frankly,  you 
cannot  have  good  architecture  merely  by 
asking  people’s  advice  on  occasion.  All  good 
architecture  is  the  expression  of  national  life 
and  character,  and  it  is  produced  by  a pre- 
valent and  eager  national  taste,  or  desire  for 
beauty.  And  I want  you  to  think  a little  of 
the  deep  significance  of  this  word  “ taste  ; ” for 
no  statement  of  mine  has  been  more  earnestly 
or  oftener  controverted  than  that  good  taste  is 
essentially  a moral  quality.  “ No,”  say  many 
of  my  antagonists,  “ taste  is  one  thing,  morality 
is  another.  Tell  us  what  is  pretty;  we  shall 
be  glad  to  know  that ; but  preach  no  sermons 
to  us.” 

Permit  me,  therefore,  to  fortify  this  old 
dogma  of  mine  somewhat.  Taste  is  not  only 
a part  and  an  index  of  morality — it  is  the  only 
morality.  The  first,  and  last,  and  closest  trial 
question  to  any  living  creature  is,  “ What  do 
you  like  ? ” Tell  me  what  you  like,  and  I’ll  tell 
you  what  you  are.  Go  out  into  the  street,  and 
ask  the  first  man  or  woman  you  meet,  what 
their  “ taste  ” is,  and  if  they  answer  candidly, 
you  know  them,  body  and  soul.  “ You,  my 


84  THE  crown  of  wild  olive. 


friend  in  the  rags,  with  the  unsteady  gait,  what 
do  you  like  ? ” “ A pipe  and  a quartern  of  gin.” 
I know  you.  “ You,  my  good  woman,  with  the 
quick  step  and  tidy  bonnet,  what  do  you  like  ? ” 
“ A swept  hearth  and  a clean  tea-table,  and  my 
husband  opposite  me,  and  a baby  at  my  breast.” 
Good,  I know  you  also.  “You,  little  girl  with 
the  golden  hair  and  soft  eyes,  what  do  you 
like  ? ” “ My  canary,  and  a run  among  the 

wood  hyacinths.”  “You,  little  boy  with  the 
dirty  hands  and  the  low  forehead,  what  do  you 
like  ? ” “A  shy  at  the  sparrows,  and  a game 
at  pitch-farthing.”  Good ; we  know  them  all 
now.  What  more  need  we  ask? 

“ Nay,”  perhaps  you  answer : “ we  need 
rather  to  ask  what  these  people  and  children 
do,  than  what  they  like.  If  they  do  right,  it  is 
no  matter  that  they  like  what  is  wrong  ; and  if 
they  do  wrong,  it  is  no  matter  that  they  like 
what  is  right.  Doing  is  the  great  thing  ; and 
it  does  not  matter  that  the  man  likes  drinking, 
so  that  he  does  not  drink  ; nor  that  the  little 
girl  likes  to  be  kind  to  her  canary,  if  she  will 
not  learn  her  lessons  ; nor  that  the  little  boy 
likes  throwing  stones  at  the  sparrowrs,  if  he 
goes  to  the  Sunday  school.”  Indeed,  for  a 
short  time,  and  in  a provisional  sense,  this  is 


TRAFFIC. 


true.  For  if,  resolutely,  people  do  what  is 
right,  in  time  they  come  to  like  doing  it  But 
they  only  are  in  a right  moral  stage  when  they 
have  come  to  like  doing  it ; and  as  long  as  they 
don’t  like  it,  they  are  still  in  a vicious  state. 
The  man  is  not  in  health  of  body  who  is  always 
thirsting  for  the  bottle  in  the  cupboard,  though 
he  bravely  bears  his  thirst ; but  the  man  who 
heartily  enjoys  water  in  the  morning  and  wine 
in  the  evening,  each  in  its  proper  quantity  and 
time.  And  the  entire  object  of  true  education 
is  to  make  people  not  merely  do  the  right 
things,  but  enjoy  the  right  things — not  merely 
industrious,  but  to  love  industry — not  merely 
learned,  but  to  love  knowledge — not  merely 
pure,  but  to  love  purity — not  merely  just,  but 
to  hunger  and  thirst  after  justice. 

But  you  may  answer  or  think,  “ Is  the  liking 
for  outside  ornaments, — for  pictures,  for  stat- 
ues, or  furniture,  or  architecture, — a moral 
quality?”  Yes,  most  surely,  if  a rightly  set 
liking.  Taste  for  any  pictures  or  statues  is 
not  a moral  quality,  but  taste  for  good  ones  is. 
Only  here  again  we  have  to  define  the  word 
“good.”  I don’t  mean  by  “ good,”  clever — or 
learned — or  difficult  in  the  doing.  Take  a 
picture  by  Teniers,  of  sots  quarrelling  over 


86  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


their  dice : it  is  an  entirely  clever  picture ; so 
clever  that  nothing  in  its  kind  has  ever  been 
done  equal  to  it ; but  it  is  also  an  entirely  base 
and  evil  picture.  It  is  an  expression  of  delight 
in  the  prolonged  contemplation  of  a vile  thing, 
and  delight  in  that  is  an  “ unmannered,”  or 
“ immoral  ” quality.  It  is  “ bad  taste  ” in  the 
profoundest  sense — it  is  the  taste  of  the  devils. 
On  the  other  hand,  a picture  of  Titian’s,  or  a 
Greek  statue,  or  a Greek  coin,  or  a Turner 
landscape,  expresses  delight  in  the  perpetual 
contemplation  of  a good  and  perfect  thing. 
That  is  an  entirely  moral  quality — it  is  the 
taste  of  the  angels.  And  all  delight  in  art,  and 
all  love  of  it,  resolve  themselves  into  simple 
love  of  that  which  deserves  love.  That  de- 
serving is  the  quality  which  we  call  “ loveliness  ” 
— (we  ought  to  have  an  opposite  word,  hate- 
liness,  to  be  said  of  the  things  which  deserve 
to  be  hated)  ; and  it  is  not  an  indifferent  nor 
optional  thing  whether  we  love  this  or  that ; 
but  it  is  just  the  vital  function  of  all  our  being. 
What  we  like  determines  what  we  are , and  is 
the  sign  of  what  we  are  ; and  to  teach  taste  is 
inevitably  to  form  character.  As  I was  thinking 
over  this,  in  walking  up  Fleet  Street  the  other 
day,  my  eye  caught  tfee  title  of  a book  standing 


TRAFFIC . 


87 


open  in  a bookseller’s  window.  It  was — “ On 
the  necessity  of  the  diffusion-  of  taste  among 
all  classes.”  “ Ah,”  I thought  to  myself,  “ my 
classifying  friend,  when  you  have  diffused  your 
taste,  where  will  your  classes  be  ? The  man 
who  likes  what  you  like,  belongs  to  the  same 
class  with  you,  I think.  Inevitably  so.  You 
may  put  him  to  other  work  if  you  choose ; but, 
by  the  condition  you  have  brought  him  into, 
he  will  dislike  the  other  work  as  much  as  you 
would  yourself.  You  get  hold  of  a scavenger, 
or  a costermonger,  who  enjoyed  the  Newgate 
Calendar  for  literature,  and  ‘ Pop  goes  the 
Weasel ! ’ for  music.  You  think  you  can  make 
him  like  Dante  or  Beethoven  ? I wish  you  joy 
of  your  lessons  ; but  if  you  do,  you  have  made 
a gentleman  of  him  : — he  won’t  like  to  go  back 
to  his  costermongering.” 

And  as  completely  and  unexceptionally  is 
this  so,  that,  if  I had  time  to-night,  I could 
show  you  that  a nation  cannot  be  affected  by 
any  vice,  or  weakness,  without  expressing  it, 
legibly,  and  forever,  either  in  bad  art,  or  by 
want  of  art ; and  that  there  is  no  national 
virtue,  small  or  great,  which  is  not  manifestly 
expressed  in  all  the  art  which  circumstances 
enable  the  people  possessing  that  virtue  to 


88  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


produce.  Take,  for  instance,  your  great  Eng- 
lish virtue  of  enduring  and  patient  courage. 
You  have  at  present  in  England  only  one  art 
of  any  consequence — that  is,  iron-working. 
You  know  thoroughly  well  how  to  cast  and 
hammer  iron.  Now,  do  you  think  in  those 
masses  of  lava  which  you  build  volcanic 
cones  to  melt,  and  which  you  forge  at  the 
mouths  of  the  Infernos  you  have  created ; do 
you  think,  on  those  iron  plates,  your  courage 
and  endurance  are  not  written  forever — not 
merely  with  an  iron  pen,  but  on  iron  parch- 
ment ? And  take  also  your  great  English  vice 
— European  vice — vice  of  all  the  world — vice 
of  all  other  worlds  that  roll  or  *shine  in  heaven, 
bearing  with  them  yet  the  atmosphere  of  hell 
— the  vice  of  jealousy,  which  brings  competi- 
tion into  commerce,  treachery  into  your  coun- 
cils, and  dishonor  into  your  wars — that  vice 
which  has  rendered  for  you,  and  for  your  next 
neighboring  nation,  the  daily  occupations  of 
existence  no  longer  possible,  but  with  the  mail 
upon  your  breasts  and  the  sword  loose  in  its 
sheath  ; so  that,  at  last,  you  have  realized  for 
all  the  multitudes  of  the  two  great  peoples 
who  lead  the  so-called  civilization  of  the  earth, 
— you  have  realized  for  them  all,  I say,  in 


TRAFFIC . 


89 


person  and  in  policy,  what  was  once  true  only 
of  the  rough  Border  riders  of  your  Cheviot 
hills — 

They  carved  at  the  meal 

With  gloves  of  steel, 

And  they  drank  the  red  wine  through  the  helmet 
barr’d ; — 

do  you  think  that  this  national  shame  and 
dastardliness  of  heart  are  not  written  as  legibly 
on  every  rivet  of  your  iron  armor  as  the 
strength  of  the  right  hands  that  forged  it  ? 
Friends,  I know  not  whether  this  thing  be  the 
more  ludicrous  or  the  more  melancholy.  It  is 
quite  unspeakably  both.  Suppose,  instead  of 
being  now  sent  for  by  you,  I had  been  sent 
for  by  some  private  gentleman,  living  in  a 
suburban  house,  with  his  garden  separated 
only  by  a fruit-wall  from  his  next-door  neigh- 
bor’s ; and  he  had  called  me  to  consult  with 
him  on  the  furnishing  of  his  drawing-room.  I 
begin  looking  about  me,  and  find  the  walls 
rather  bare  ; I think  such  and  such  a paper 
might  be  desirable — perhaps^  a little  fresco 
here  and  there  on  the  ceiling — a damask  cur- 
tain or  so  at  the  windows.  “ Ah,”  says  my 
employer,  “ damask  curtains,  indeed  ! That’s 
all  very  fine,  but  you  know  I can’t  afford  that 


9° 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


kind  of  thing  just  now  ! ” “Yet  the  world 
credits  you  with  a splendid  income  ! ” “ Ah, 

yes,”  says  my  friend,  “ but  do  you  know,  at 
present,  I am  obliged  to  spend  it  nearly  all 
in  steel-traps  ? ” “ Steel-traps  ! for  whom  ? ” 

“Why,  for  that  fellow  on  the  other  side  the 
wall,  you  know : we’re  very  good  friends,  cap- 
ital friends  ; but  we  are  obliged  to  keep  our 
traps  set  on  both  sides  of  the  wall ; we  could 
not  possibly  keep  on  friendly  terms  without 
them,  and  our  spring-guns.  The  worst  of  it 
is,  we  are  both  clever  fellows  enough  ; and 
there’s  never  a day  passes  that  we  don’t  find 
out  a new  trap,  or  a new  gun-barrel,  or  some- 
thing ; we  spend  about  fifteen  millions  a year 
each  in  our  traps,  take  it  all  together ; and  I 
don’t  see  how  we’re  to  do  with  less.  ” A highly 
comic  state  of  life  for  two  private  gentlemen  ! 
but  for  two  nations,  it  seems  to  me,  not  wholly 
confic  ! Bedlam  would  be  comic,  perhaps,  if 
there  were  only  one  madman  in  it ; and  your 
Christmas  pantomime  is  comic,  when  there  is 
only  one  clown  in  it ; but  when  the  whole 
world  turns  clown,  and  paints  itself  red  with 
its  own  heart’s  blood  instead  of  vermilion,  it 
is  something  else  than  comic,  I think. 

Mind,  I know  a great  deal  of  this  is  play, 


TRAFFIC. 


9T 

and  willingly  allow  for  that.  You  don’t  know 
what  to  do  with  yourselves  for  a sensation  : 
fox-hunting  and  cricketing  will  not  carry  you 
through  the  whole  of  this  unendurably  long 
mortal  life ; you  liked  pop-guns  when  you 
were  schoolboys,  and  rifles  and  Armstrongs 
are  only  the  same  things  better  made:  but 
then  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  what  was  play  to 
you  when  boys,  was  not  play  to  the  sparrows  ; 
and  what  is  play  to  you  now,  is  not  play  to 
the  small  birds  of  State  neither ; and  for  the 
black  eagles,  you  are  somewhat  shy  of  taking 
shots  at  them,  if  I mistake  not 

I must  get  back  to  the  matter  in  hand,  how- 
ever. Believe  me,  without  farther  instance,  I 
could  show  you,  in  all  time,  that  every  nation’s 
vice,  or  virtue,  was  written  in  its  art : the 
soldiership  of  early  Greece ; the  sensuality  of 
late  Italy  ; the  visionary  religion  of  Tuscany  ; 
the  splendid  human  energy  and  beauty  of 
Venice.  I have  no  time  to  do  this  to-night 
(I  have  done  it  elsewhere  before  now)  ; but  I 
proceed  to  apply  the  principle  to  ourselves  in 
a more  searching  manner. 

I notice  that  among  all  the  new  buildings 
that  cover  your  once  wild  hills,  churches  and 
schools  are  mixed  in  due,  that  is  to  say,  in 


92 


TIIE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


large  proportion,  with  your  mills  and  man- 
sions; and  I notice  also  that  the  churches  and 
schools  are  almost  always  Gothic,  and  the 
mansions  and  mills  are  never  Gothic  Will 
you  allow  me  to  ask  precisely  the  meaning  of 
this  ? For  remember,  it  is  peculiarly  a mod- 
ern phenomenon.  When  Gothic  was  invented, 
houses  were  Gothic  as  well  as  churches  ; and 
when  the  Italian  style  superseded  the  Gothic, 
churches  were  Italian  as  well  as  houses.  If 
there  is  a Gothic  spire  to  the  cathedral  of  Ant- 
werp, if  there  is  a Gothic  belfry  to  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  at  Brussels  ; if  Inigo  Jones  builds  an  Ital- 
ian Whitehall,  Sir  Christopher  Wren  builds  an 
Italian  St.  PauPs.  But  now  you  live  under 
one  school  of  architecture,  and  worship  under 
another.  What  do  you  mean  by  doing  this  ? 
Am  I to  understand  that  you  are  thinking  of 
changing  your  architecture  back  to  Gothic ; 
and  that  you  treat  your  churches  experiment- 
ally, because  it  does  not  matter  what  mis- 
takes you  make  in  a church  ? Or  am  I to  un- 
derstand that  you  consider  Gothic  a pre-emi- 
nently sacred  and  beautiful  mode  of  building, 
which  you  think,  like  the  fine  frankincense, 
should  be  mixed  for  the  tabernacle  only,  and 
reserved  for  your  religious  services  ? For  if 


TRAFFIC 


93 


this  be  the  feeling,  though  it  may  seem  at  first 
as  if  it  were  graceful  and  reverent,  you  will 
find  that,  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  it  signifies 
neither  more  nor  less  than  that  you  have 
separated  your  religion  from  your  life. 

For  consider  what  a wide  significance  this 
fact  has  ; and  remember  that  it  is  not  you  only, 
but  all  the  people  of  England,  who  are  behav- 
ing thus  just  now. 

You  have  all  got  into  the  habit  of  calling  the 
church  “ the  house  of  God.”  I have  seen,  over 
the  doors  of  many  churches,  the  legend  act- 
ually carved,  “ This  is  the  house  of  God,  and 
this  is  the  gate  of  heaven.”  Now,  note  where 
that  legend  comes  from,  and  of  what  place  it 
was  first  spoken.  A boy  leaves  his  fathers 
house  to  go  on  a long  journey  on  foot,  to  visit 
his  uncle  ; he  has  to  cross  a wild  hill-desert ; 
just  as  if  one  of  your  own  boys  had  to  cross 
the  wolds  of  Westmoreland,  to  visit  an  uncle 
at  Carlisle.  The  second  or  third  day  your  boy 
finds  himself  somewhere  between  Hawes  and 
Brough,  in  the  midst  of  the  moors,  at  sunset. 
It  is  stony  ground,  and  boggy ; he  cannot  go 
one  foot  farther  that  night.  Down  he  lies,  to 
sleep,  on  Wharnside,  where  best  he  may, 
gathering  a few  of  the  stones  together  to 


94 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


put  under  his  head ; — so  wild  the  place  is,  he 
cannot  get  anything  but  stones.  And  there, 
lying  under  the  broad  night,  he  has  a 
dream ; and  he  sees  a ladder  set  up  on  the 
earth,  and  the  top  of  it  reaches  to  heaven,  and 
the  angels  of  God  are  ascending  and  descend- 
ing upon  it.  And  when  he  wakes  out  of  his 
sleep,  he  says,  “ How  dreadful  is  this  place  ; 
surely,  this  is  none  other  than  the  house  of 
God,  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven.”  This 
place,  observe ; not  this  church ; not  this 
city ; not  this  stone,  even,  which  he  puts  up 
for  a memorial — the  piece  of  flint  on  which  his 
head  has  lain.  But  this  place ; this  windy 
slope  of  Wharnside ; this  moorland  hollow, 
torrent-bitten,  snow-blighted ; this  any  place 
where  God  lets  down  the  ladder.  And  how 
are  you  to  know  where  that  will  be  ? or  how 
are  you  to  determine  where  it  may  be,  but  by 
being  ready  for  it  always  ? Do  you  know 
where  the  lightning  is  to  fall  next  ? You  do 
know  that,  partly  ; you  can  guide  the  lightning  ; 
but  you  cannot  guide  the  going  forth  of  the 
Spirit,  which  is  that  lightning  when  it  shines 
from  the  east  to  the  west. 

But  the  perpetual  and  insolent  warping  of 
that  strong  verse  to  serve  a merely  ecclesiasti- 


TRAFFIC . 


9? 

cal  purpose,  is  only  one  of  the  thousand  in- 
stances in  which  we  sink  back  into  gross 
Judaism.  We  call  our  churches  “ temples.” 
Now,  you  know,  or  ought  to  know,  they  are 
not  temples.  They  have  never  had,  never  can 
have,  anything  whatever  to  do  with  temples. 
They  are  “ synagogues” — “ gathering  places” 
— where  you  gather  yourselves  together  as  an 
assembly;  and  by  not  calling  them  so,  you 
again  miss  the  force  of  another  mighty  text — • 
“ Thou,  when  thou  prayest,  shalt  not  be  as  the 
hypocrites  are  ; for  they  love  to  pray  standing 
in  the  churches  ” [we  should  translate  it],  “ that 
they  may  be  seen  of  men.  But  thou,  when 
thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  when 
thou  hast  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father,” — 
which  is,  not  in  chancel  nor  in  aisle,  but  “ in 
secret.” 

Now,  you  feel,  as  I say  this  to  you — I know 
you  feel — as  if  I were  trying  to  take  away  the 
honor  of  your  churches.  Not  so  ; I am  trying 
to  prove  to  you  the  honor  of  your  houses  and 
your  hills  ; I am  trying  to  show  you — not  that 
the  Church  is  not  sacred — but  that  the  whole 
Earth  is.  I would  ha,ve  you  feel,  what  care- 
less, what  constant,  what  infectious  sin  there 
is  in  all  modes  of  thought,  whereby,  in  calling 


96  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

your  churches  only  “ holy,”  you  call  your  hearths 
and  homes  profane ; and  have  separated 
yourselves  from  the  heathen  by  casting  all 
your  household  gods  to  the  ground,  instead  of 
recognizing,  in  the  place  of  their  many  and 
feeble  Lares,  the  presence  of  your  One  and 
Mighty  Lord  and  Lar. 

“ But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  our  Ex- 
change ? ” you  ask  me,  impatiently.  My  dear 
friends,  it  has  just  everything  to  do  with  it; 
on  these  inner  and  great  questions  depend  all 
the  outer  and  little  ones  ; and  if  you  have 
asked  me  down  here  to  speak  to  you  be- 
cause you  had  before  been  interested  in  any- 
thing I have  written,  you  must  know  that  all 
I have  yet  said  about  architecture  was  to  show 
this.  The  book  I called  “ The  Seven  Lamps  ” 
was  to  show  that  certain  right  states  of  temper 
and  moral  feeling  were  the  magic  powers  by 
which  all  good  architecture,  without  exception, 
had  been  produced.  “ The  Stones  of  Venice  ” 
had,  from  beginning  to  end,  no  other  aim  than 
to  show  that  the  Gothic  architecture  of  Venice 
had  arisen  out  of,  and  indicated  in  all  its 
features,  a state  of  pure  national  faith,  and  of 
domestic  virtue ; and  that  its  Renaissance 
architecture  had  arisen  out  of,  and  in  all  its 


TRAFFIC. 


97 


features  indicated,  a state  of  concealed  national 
infidelity,  and  of  domestic  corruption.  And 
now,  you  ask  me  what  style  is  best  to  build 
in  ; and  how  can  I answer,  knowing  the  mean- 
ing of  the  two  styles,  but  by  another  question — 
do  you  mean  to  build  as  Christians  or  as  In- 
fidels ? And  still  more — do  you  mean  to  build 
as  honest  Christians  or  as  honest  Infidels  ? as 
thoroughly  and  confessedly  either  one  or  the 
other  ? You  don’t  like  to  be  asked  such  rude 
questions.  I cannot  help  it ; they  are  of  much 
more  importance  then  this  Exchange  business  ; 
and  if  they  can  be  at  once  answered,  the  Ex- 
change business  settles  itself  in  a moment. 
But,  before  I press  them  farther,  I must  ask 
leave  to  explain  one  point  clearly.  In  all  my 
past  work,  my  endeavor  has  been  to  show  that 
good  architecture  is  essentially  religious — the 
production  of  a faithful  and  virtuous,  not  of  an 
infidel  and  corrupted  people.  But  in  the  course 
of  doing  this,  I have  had  also  to  show  that 
good  architecture  is  not  ecclesiastical.  People 
are  so  apt  to  look  upon  religion  as  the  busi- 
ness of  the  clergy,  not  their  own,  that  the 
moment  they  hear  of  anything  depending  on 
“ religion,”  they  think  it  must  also  have  de- 
pended on  the  priesthood  ; and  I have  had  to 
7 


98  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

take  what  place  was  to  be  occupied  between 
these  two  errors,  and  fight  both,  often  with 
seeming  contradiction.  Good  architecture  is 
the  work  of  good  and  believing  men ; there- 
fore, you  say,  at  least  some  people  say,  “«Good 
architecture  must  essentially  have  been  the 
work  of  the  clergy,  not  of  the  laity.’’  No — a 
thousand  times  no;  good  architecture  has 
always  been  the  work  of  the  commonatly,  not  of 
the  clergy.  What,  you  say,  those  glorious 
cathedrals — the  pride  of  Europe— did  their 
builders  not  form  Gothic  architecture?  No; 
they  corrupted  Gothic  architecture.  Gothic 
was  formed  in  the  baron’s  castle,  and  the 
burgher’s  street.  It  was  formed  by  the 
f thoughts,  and  hands,  and  powers  of  free  citizens 
and  soldier  kings.  By  the  monk  it  was  used 
as  an  instrument  for  the  aid  of  his  superstition  . 
when  that  superstition  became  a beautiful  mad- 
ness, and  the  best  hearts  of  Europe  vainly 
dreamed  and  pined  in  the  cloister,  and  vainly 
raged  and  perished  in  the  crusade — through 
that  fury  of  perverted  faith  and  wasted  war, 
the  Gothic  rose  also  to  its  loveliest,  most  fan- 
tastic, and,  finally  most  foolish  dreams  ; and, 
in  those  dreams,  was  lost. 

I hope,  now,  that  there  is  no  risk  of  youl 


TRAFFIC. 


99 


misunderstanding  me  when  I come  to  the  gist 
of  what  I want  to  say  to-night — when  I repeat, 
that  every  great  national  architecture  has  been 
the  resist  and  exponent  of  a great  national  re- 
ligion. You  can’t  have  bits  of  it  here,  bits 
there — you  must  have  it  everywhere,  or  no- 
where. It  is  not  the  monopoly  of  a clerical 
company — it  is  not  the  exponent  of  a theological 
dogma — it  is  not  the  hieroglyphic  writing  of  an 
initated  priesthood ; it  is  the  manly  language 
of  a people  inspired  by  resolute  and  common 
purpose,  and  rendering  resolute  and  common 
fidelity  to  the  legible  laws  of  an  undoubted  God. 

Now,  there  have  as  yet  been  three  distinct 
schools  of  European  architecture.  I say, 
European,  because  Asiatic  and  African  archi- 
tectures belong  so  entirely  to  other  races  and 
climates,  that  there  is  no  question  of  them 
here  ; only,  in  passing,  I will  simply  assure 
you  that  whatever  is  good  or  great  in  Egypt, 
and  Syria,  and  India,  is  just  good  or  great  for 
the  same  reasons  as  the  buildings  on  our  side 
of  the  Bosphorus.  We  Europeans,  then,  have 
had  three  great  religions  ; the  Greek,  which 
was  the  worship  of  the  God  of  Wisdom  and 
Power;  the  Mediaeval,  which  was  the  Worship 
of  the  God  of  Judgment  and  Consolation  ; the 


ioo  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


Renaissance,  which  was  the  worship  of  the 
God  of  Pride  and  Beauty  ; these  three  we  have 
had — they  are  past, — and  now,  at  last,  we 
English  have  got  a fourth  religion,  and  a God 
of  our  own,  about  which  I want  to  ask  you. 
But  I must  explain  these  three  old  ones  first. 

I repeat,  first,  the  Greeks  essentially  wor- 
shipped the  God  of  Wisdom  ; so  that  what- 
ever contended  against  their  religion, — to  the 
Jews  a stumbling-block, — was,  to  the  Greeks 
— Foolishness. 

The  first  Greek  idea  of  Deity  was  that  ex- 
pressed in  the  word,  of  which  we  keep  the 
remnant  in  our  words,  “ZV-urnal”  and  “ Di- 
vine  ” — the  god  of  Day , Jupiter  the  revealer. 
Athena  is  his  daughter,  but  especially  daughter 
of  the  Intellect,  springing  armed  from  the 
head.  We  are  only  with  the  help  of  recent 
investigation  beginning  to  penetrate  the  depth 
of  meaning  couched  under  the  Athenaic  sym- 
bols ; but  I may  note  rapidly,  that  her  aegis 
the  mantle  with  the  serpent  fringes,  in  which 
she  often,  in  the  best  statues,  is  represented 
as  folding  up  her  left  hand  for  better  guard, 
and  the  Gorgon  on  her  shield,  are  both  repre- 
sentative mainly  of  the  chilling  horror  and 
sadness  (turning  men  to  stone,  as  it  were),  of 


TRAFFIC. 


IOI 


the  outmost  and  superficial  spheres  of  knowl- 
edge— that  knowledge  which  separates,  in 
bitterness,  hardness,  and  sorrow,  the  heart  of 
the  full-grown  man  from  the  heart  of  the 
child.  For  out  of  imperfect  knowledge  spring 
terror,  dissension,  danger,  and  disdain  ; but 
from  perfect  knowledge,  given  by  the  full- 
revealed  Athena,  strength  and  peace,  in  sign 
of  which  she  is  crowned  with  the  olive  spray, 
and  bears  the  resistless  spear. 

This,  then,  was  the  Greek  conception  of 
purest  Deity,  and  every  habit  of  life,  and  every 
form  of  his  art  developed  themselves  from  the 
seeking  this  bright,  serene,  resistless  wisdom  ; 
and  setting  himself,  as  a man,  to  do  things 
evermore  rightly  and  strongly  ; # not  with  any 

* It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  Greek  worship, 
or  seeking,  was  chiefly  of  Beauty.  It  was  essentially  of 
Rightness  and  Strength  founded  on  Forethought ; the 
principal  character  of  Greek  art  is  not  Beauty,  but  de- 
sign ; and  the  Dorian  Apollo-worship  and  Athenian 
Virgin-worship  are  both  expressions  of  adoration  of 
divine  Wisdom  and  Purity.  Next  to  these  great 
deities  rank,  in  power  over  the  national  mind,  Diony- 
sus and  Ceres,  the  givers  of  human  strength  and  life  ; 
then,  for  heroic  example,  Hercules.  There  is  no  Venus- 
worship  among  the  Greeks  in  the  great  times  ; and  the 
Muses  are  essentially  teachers  of  Truth,  and  of  its  har- 
monies* 


102  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

ardent  affection  or  ultimate  hope;  but  with  a 
resolute  and  contingent  energy  of  will,  as  know- 
ing that  for  failure  there  was  no  consolation, 
and  for  sin  there  was  no  remission.  And  the 
Greek  architecture  rose  unerring,  bright, 
clearly  defined,  and  self-contained. 

Next  followed  in  Europe  the  great  Christian 
faith,  which  was  essentially  the  religion  of 
Comfort.  Its  great  doctrine  is  the  remission 
of  sins ; for  which  cause  it  happens,  too  often, 
in  certain  phases  of  Christianity,  that  sin  and 
sickness  themselves  are  partly  glorified,  as  if, 
the  more  you  have  to  be  healed  of,  the 
more  divine  was  the  healing.  The  practi- 
cal result  of  this  doctrine,  in  art,  is  a continual 
contemplation  of  sin  and  disease,  and  of 
imaginary  states  of  purification  from  them ; 
thus  we  have  an  architecture  conceived  in  a 
mingled  sentiment  of  melancholy  and  aspira- 
tion, partly  severe,  partly  luxuriant,  which  will 
bend  itself  to  every  one  of  our  needs,  and 
every  one  of  our  fancies,  and  be  strong  or 
weak  with  us,  as  we  are  strong  or  weak  our- 
selves. It  is,  of  all  architecture,  the  basest, 
when  base  people  build  it — of  all,  the  noblest, 
when  built  by  the  noble. 

And  now  note  that  both  these  religions — 


TRAFFIC. 


103 


Greek  and  Mediaeval — perished  by  falsehood  in 
their  own  main  purpose.  The  Greek  religion  of 
Wisdom  perished  in  a false  philosophy — “ Op- 
positions of  science,  falsely  so  called.”  The 
Mediaeval  religion  of  Consolation  perished  in 
false  comfort ; in  remission  of  sins  given  ly- 
ingly.  It  was  the  selling  of  absolution  that 
ended  the  Mediaeval  faith ; and  I can  tell  you 
more,  it  is  the  selling  of  absolution  which,  to 
the  end  of  time,  will  mark  false  Christianity. 
Pure  Christianity  gives  her  remission  of  sins 
only  by  ending  them  ; but  false  Christianity 
gets  her  remission  of  sins  by  compounding  for 
them.  And  there  are  many  ways  of  compound- 
ing for  them.  We  English  have  beautiful 
little  quiet  ways  of  buying  absolution,  whether 
in  low  Church  or  high,  far  more  cunning  than 
any  of  TetzePs  trading. 

Then,  thirdly,  there  followed  the  religion  of 
Pleasure,  in  which  all  Europe  gave  itself  to 
luxury,  ending  in  death.  First,  bals  masques 
in  every  saloon,  and  then  guillotines  in  every 
square.  And  all  these  three  worships  issue  in 
vast  temple  building.  Your  Greek  worshipped 
Wisdom,  and  built  you  the  Parthenon — the 
Virgin’s  temple.  The  Mediaeval  worshipped 
Consolation,  and  built  you  Virgin  temples  also 


104  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

— but  to  our  Lady  of  Salvation.  Then  the 
Revivalist  worshipped  beauty,  of  a sort,  and 
built  you  Versailles,  and  the  Vatican.  Now, 
lastly,  will  you  tell  me  what  we  worship,  and 
what  we  build  ? 

You  know  we  are  speaking  always  of  the 
real,  active,  continual,  national  worship  ; that 
by  which  men  act  while  they  live  ; not  that 
which  they  talk  of  when  they  die.  Now,  we 
have,  indeed,  a nominal  religion,  to  which  we 
pay  tithes  of  property  and  sevenths  of  time ; 
but  we  have  also  a practical  and  earnest 
religion,  to  which  we  devote  nine-tenths  of  our 
property  and  sixth-sevenths  of  our  time.  And 
we  dispute  a great  deal  about  the  nominal 
religion  ; but  we  are  all  unanimous  about  this 
practical  one,  of  which  I think  you  will  admit 
that  the  ruling  goddess  may  be  best  generally 
described  as  the  “ Goddess  of  Getting-on,”  or 
“ Britannia  of  the  Market/'  The  Athenians 
had  an  “ Athena  Agoraia,”  or  Minerva  of  the 
Market ; but  she  was  a subordinate  type  of 
their  goddess,  while  our  Britannia  Agoraia  is 
the  principal  type  of  ours.  And  all  your  great 
architectural  works,  are,  of  course,  built  to  her. 
It  is  long  since  you  built  a great  cathedral ; 
and  how  you  would  laugh  at  me,  if  I proposed 


TRAFFIC. 


io5 

building  a cathedral  on  the  top  of  one  of  these 
hills  of  yours,  taking  it  for  an  Acropolis  ! But 
your  railroad  mounds,  prolonged  masses  of 
Acropolis  ; your  railroad  stations,  vaster  than 
the  Parthenon,  and  innumerable ; your  chim- 
neys, how  much  more  mighty  a'nd  costly  than 
cathedral  spires  ! your  harbor-piers  ; your  ware- 
houses ; your  exchanges  ! — all  these  are  built 
to  your  great  Goddess  of  “ Getting-on  ; ” and 
she  has  formed,  and  will  continue  to  form,  your 
architecture,  as  long  as  you  worship  her  ; and 
it  is  quite  vain  to  ask  me  to  tell  you  how  to 
build  to  her ; you  know  far  better  than  I. 

There  might  indeed,  on  some  theories,  be  a 
conceivably  good  architecture  for  Exchanges 
— that  is  to  say  if  there  were  any  heroism  in 
the  fact  or  deed  of  exchange,  which  might  be 
typically  carved  on  the  outside  of  your  build- 
ing. For,  you  know,  all  beautiful  architecture 
must  be  adorned  with  sculpture  or  painting  ; 
and  for  sculpture  or  painting,  you  must  have  a 
subject.  And  hitherto  it  has  been  a received 
opinion  among  the  nations  of  the  world  that  the 
only  right  subjects  for  either,  were  heroisms  of 
some  sort.  Even  on  his  pots  and  his  flagons, 
the  Greek  put  a Hercules  slaying  lions,  or  an 
Apollo  slaying  serpents,  or  Bacchus  slaying 


lo6  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


melancholy  giants,  and  earth-borne  despond- 
encies. On  his  temples,  the  Greek  put  con- 
tests of  great  warriors  in  founding  states,  or  of 
gods  with  evil  spirits.  On  his  houses  and 
temples  alike,  the  Christian  put  carvings  of 
angels  conquering  devils  ; or  of  hero-martyrs 
exchanging  this  world  for  another ; subject 
inappropriate,  I think,  to  our  manner  of  ex- 
change here.  And  the  Master  of  Christians 
not  only  left  his  followers  without  any  orders 
as  to  the  sculpture  of  affairs  of  exchange  on 
the  outside  of  buildings,  but  gave  some  strong 
evidence  of  his  dislike  of  affairs  of  exchange 
within  them.  And  yet  there  jnight  surely  be  a 
heroism  in  such  affairs ; and  all  commerce 
become  a kind  of  selling  of  doves,  not  im- 
pious. The  wonder  has  always  been  great 
to  me,  that  heroism  has  never  been  supposed 
to  be  in  anywise  consistent  with  the  practice 
of  supplying  people  with  food,  or  clothes ; 
but  rather  with  that  of  quartering  oneself 
upon  them  for  food,  and  stripping  them  of 
their  clothes.  Spoiling  of  armor  is  an  heroic 
deed  in  all  ages  , but  the  selling  of  clothes, 
old  or  new,  has  never  taken  any  color  of  mag- 
nanimity. Yet  one  does  not  see  why  feeding 
the  hungry  and  clothing  the  naked  should 


TRAFFIC. 


107 

ever  become  base  businesses,  even  when  en- 
gaged in  on  a large  scale.  If  one  could  con- 
trive to  attach  the  notion  of  conquest  to  them 
anyhow?  so  that,  supposing  there  were  any- 
where an  obstinate  race,  who  refused  to  be 
comforted,  one  might  take  some  pride  in  giv- 
ing them  compulsory  comfort ; and  as  it  were, 
“ occupying  a country  ” with  one’s  gifts,  in- 
stead of  one’s  armies  ? If  one  could  only  con- 
sider it  as  much  a victory  to  get  a barren  field 
sown,  as  to  get  'an  eared  field  stripped  ; and 
contend  who  should  build  villages,  instead  of 
who  should  “ carry  ” them.  Are  not  all  forms 
of  heroism  conceivable  in  doing  these  service- 
able deeds?  You  doubt  who  is  strongest? 
It  might  be  ascertained  by  push  of  spade,  as 
well  as  push  of  sword.  Who  is  wisest  ? 
There  are  witty  things  to  be  thought  of  in 
planning  other  business  than  campaigns. 
Who  is  bravest?  There  are  always  the 
elements  to  fight  with,  stronger  than  men ; 
and  nearly  as  merciless.  The  only  absolutely 
and  unapproachably  heroic  element  in  the 
soldier’s  work  seems  to  be — that  he  is  paid 
little  for  it — and  regularly : while  you  traffick- 
ers, and  exchangers,  and  others  occupied  in 
presumably  benevolent  business,  like  to  be 


io8  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


paid  much  for  it — and  by  chance.  I never 
can  make  out  how  it  is  that  a knight-errant 
does  not  expect  to  be  paid  for  his  trouble,  but 
a pedler-errant  always  does  ; — that  people  are 
willing  to  take  hard  knocks  for  nothing,  but 
never  to  sell  ribbons  cheap  ; — that  they  are 
ready  to  go  on  fervent  crusades  to  recover  the 
tomb  of  a buried  God,  never  on  any  travels  to 
fulfil  the  orders  of  a living  God ; — that  they 
will  go  anywhere  barefoot  to  preach  their 
faith,  but  must  be  well  bribed  to  practise  it, 
and  are  perfectly  ready  to  give  the  Gospel 
gratis,  but  never  the  loaves  and  fishes.  If 
you  choose  to  take  the  matter  up  on  any  such 
soldierly  principle,  to  do  your  commerce,  and 
your  feeding  of  nations,  for  fixed  salaries  ; and 
to  be  as  particular  about  giving  people  the 
best  food,  and  the  best  cloth,  as  soldiers  are 
about  giving  them  the  best  gunpowder,  I could 
carve  something  for  you  on  your  exchange 
worth  looking  at.  But  I can  only  at  present 
suggest  decorating  its  frieze  with  pendant 
purses;  and  making  its  pillars  broad  at  the 
base,  for  the  sticking  of  bills.  And  in  the 
innermost  chambers  of  it  there  might  be  a 
statue  of  Britannia  of  the  Market,  who  may 
have,  perhaps  advisably,  a partridge  for  her 


TRAFFIC . 


109 

crest,  typical  at  once  of  her  courage  in  fighting 
for  noble  ideas  ; and  of  her  interest  in  game  ; 
and  round  its  neck  the  inscription  in  golden 
letters,  “ Perdix  fovit  quae  non  peperit.”  * 
Then,  for  her  spear,  she  might  have  a weaver’s 
beam ; and  on  her  shield,  instead  of  her  Cross, 
the  Milanese  boar,  semi-fleeced,  with  the 
town  of  Gennesaret  proper,  in  the  field  and 
the  legend  “ In  the  best  market,”  and  her 
corselet,  of  leather,  folded  over  her  heart  in  the 
shape  of  a purse,  with  thirty  slits  in  it  for  a 
piece  of  money  to  go  in  at,  on  each  day  of  the 
month.  And  I doubt  not  but  that  people 
would  come  to  see  your  exchange,  and  its  god- 
dess, with  applause. 

Nevertheless,  I want  to  point  out  to  you 
certain  strange  characters  in  this  goddess  of 
yours.  She  differs  from  the  great  Greek  and 
Mediaeval  deities  essentially  in  two  things — - 
first,  as  to  the  continuance  of  her  presumed 
power ; secondly,  as  to  the  extent  of  it. 

1st,  as  to  the  Continuance. 

* Jerem.  xvii.  (best  in  Septuagint  and  Vulgate). 
“As  the  partridge,  fostering  what  she  brought  not 
forth,  so  he  that  getteth  riches  not  by  right,  shall  leave 
them  in  the  midst  of  his  days,  and  at  his  end  shall  be  a 
fool.” 


IIO  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


The  Greek  Goddess  of  Wisdom  gave  con- 
tinual  increase  of  wisdom,  as  the  Christian 
Spirit  of  Comfort  (or  Comforter)  continual  in- 
crease of  comfort.  There  was  no  question, 
with  these,  of  any  limit  or  cessation  of  func- 
tion. But  with  your  Agora  Goddess,  that  is 
just  the  most  important  question.  Getting  on 
— but  where  to  ? Gathering  together — but 
how  much  ? Do  you  mean  to  gather  always 
— never  to  spend?  If  so,  I wish’  you  joy  of 
your  goddess,  for  I am  just  as  well  off  as  you, 
without  the  trouble  of  worshipping  her  at  all. 
But  if  you  do  not  spend,  somebody  else  will — 
somebody  else  must.  And  it  is  because  of 
this  (among  many  other  such  errors)  that  I 
have  fearlessly  declared  your  so-called  science 
of  Political  Economy  to  be  no  science ; 
because,  namely,  it  has  omitted  the  study  of 
exactly  the  most  important  branch  of  the  busi- 
ness— the  study  of  spending . For  spend  you 
must,  and  as  much  as  you  make,  ultimately. 
You  gather  corn  : — will  you  bury  England 
under  a heap  of  grain ; or  will  you,  when  you 
have  gathered,  finally  eat  ? You  gather  gold: 
— will  you  make  your  house-roofs  of  it,  or 
pave  your  streets  with  it  ? That  is  still  one 
way  of  spending  it.  But  if  you  keep  it,  you 


TRAFFIC. 


Ill 


may  get  more,  I’ll  give  you  more;  I’ll  give 
you  all  the  gold  you  want — all  you  can  imagine 
— if  you  can  tell  me  what  you’ll  do  with  it. 
You  shall  have  thousands  of  gold  pieces  ; — 
thousands  of  thousands — millions — mountains, 
of  gold  : where  will  you  keep  them  ? Will  you 
put  an  Olympus  of  silver  upon  a golden  Pelion 
— make  Ossa  like  a wart  ? Do  you  think  the 
rain  and  dew  would  then  come  down  to  you, 
in  the  streams  from  such  mountains,  more 
blessedly  than  they  will  down  the  mountains 
which  God  has  made  for  you,  of  moss  and 
whinstone  ? But  it  is  not  gold  that  you  want 
to  gather!  What  is  it?  greenbacks?  No; 
not  those  neither.  What  is  it  then — is  it 
ciphers  after  a capital  I ? Cannot  you  prac- 
tise writing  ciphers,  and  write  as  many  as  you 
want  ? Write  ciphers  for  an  hour  every  morn- 
ing, in  a big  book,  and  say  every  evening,  I 
am  worth  all  those  noughts  more  than  I was 
yesterday.  Won’t  that  do  ? Well,  what  in 
the  name  of  Plutus  is  it  you  want?  Not  gold, 
not  greenbacks,  not  ciphers  after  a capital  I ? 
You  will  have  to  answer,  after  all,  “ No  ; we 
want,  somehow  or  other,  money’s  worthy 
Well,  what  is  that?  Let  your  Goddess  of 


1 12  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


Getting-on  discover  it,  and  let  her  learn  to 
stay  therein. 

II.  But  there  is  another  question  to  be 
asked  respecting  this  Goddess  of  Getting-on. 
The  first  was  of  the  continuance  of  her  power  ; 
the  second  is  of  its  extent. 

Pallas  and  the  Madonna  were  supposed  to 
be  all  the  world's  Pallas,  and  all  the  world’s 
Madonna.  They  could  teach  all  men,  and 
they  could  comfort  all  men.  But,  look  strictly 
into  the  nature  of  the  power  of  your  God- 
dess of  Getting-on ; and  you  will  find  she  is 
the  Goddess — not  of  everybody's  getting  on — 
but  only  of  somebody’s  getting  on.  This  is 
a vital,  or  rather  deathful,  distinction.  Ex- 
amine it  in  your  own  ideal  of  the  state  of 
national  life  which  this  Goddess  is  to  evoke 
and  maintain.  I asked  you  what  it  was,  when 
I was  last  here  ; * — you  have  never  told  me. 
Now,  shall  I try  to  tell  you  ? 

Your  ideal  of  human  life  then  is,  I think, 
that  it  should  be  passed  in  a pleasant  undulat- 
ing world,  with  iron  and  coal  everywhere  un- 
derneath it.  On  each  pleasant  bank  of  this 
world  is  to  be  a beautiful  mansion,  with  two 


♦Two  Paths,  p.  98. 


TRAFFIC. 


IJ3 


wings ; and  stables,  and  coach-houses  ; a mod- 
erately sized  park ; a large  garden  and  hot- 
houses ; and  pleasant  carriage  drives  through 
the  shrubberies.  In  this  mansion  are  to  live 
the  favored  votaries  of  the  Goddess ; the 
English  gentleman,  with  his  gracious  wife, 
and  his  beautiful  family  ; always  able  to  have 
the  boudoir  and  the  jewels  for  the  wife,  and 
the  beautiful  ball-dresses  for  the  daughters, 
and  hunters  for  the  sons,  and  a shooting  in 
the  Highlands  for  himself.  At  the  bottom  of 
the  bank,  is  to  be  the  mill ; not  less  than  a 
quarter  of  a mile  long,  with  a steam  engine  at 
each  end,  and  two  in  the  middle,  and  a chim- 
ney three  hundred  feet  high.  In  this  mill  are 
to  be  in  constant  employment  from  eight  hun- 
dred to  a thousand  workers,  who  never  drink, 
never  strike,  always  go  to  church  on  Sunday, 
and  always  express  themselves  in  respectful 
language. 

Is  not  that,  broadly,  and  in  the  main  feat- 
ures, the  kind  of  thing  you  propose  to  your- 
selves ? It  is  very  pretty  indeed  seen  from 
above  ; not  at  all  so  pretty,  seen  from  below. 
For,  observe,  while  to  one  family  this  deity  is 
indeed  the  Goddess  of  Getting-on,  to  a thou- 
sand families  she  is  the  Goddess  of  not  Get- 
8 


14  the  crown  of  wild  olive . 


ting-on.  “ Nay,”  you  say,  “ they  have  all  their 
chance.” . Yes,  so  has  every  one  in  a lottery, 
but  there  must  always  be  the  same  number  of 
blanks.  “ Ah  ! but  in  a lottery  it  is  not  skill 
and  intelligence  which  take  the  lead,  but 
blind  chance.”  What  then  ! do  you  think  the 
old  practice,  that  “ they  should  take  who  have 
the  power,  and  they  should  keep  who  can,”  is 
less  iniquitous,  when  the  power  has  become 
power  of  brains  instead  of  fist?  and  that, 
though  we  may  not  take  advantage  of  a child’s 
or  a woman’s  weakness,  we  may  of  a man’s 
foolishness  ? “ Nay,  but  finally,  work  must 

be  done,  and  some  one  must  be  at  the  top, 
some  one  at  the  bottom.”  Granted,  my 
friends.  Work  must  always  be ; and  captains 
of  work  must  always  be  ; and  if  you  in  the 
least  remember  the  tone  of  any  of  my  writings, 
you  must  know  that  they  are  thought  unfit  for 
this  age,  because  they  are  insisting  on  need  of 
government,  and  speaking  with  scorn  of  liberty. 
But  I beg  you  to  observe  that  there  is  a wide 
difference  between  being  captains  or  governors 
of  work,  and  taking  the  profits  of  it.  It  does 
not  follow,  because  you  are  general  of  an 
army,  that  you  are  to  take  all  the  treasure,  or 
land,  it  wins  (if  it  fight  for  treasure  or  land) ; 


TRAFFIC, 


1 *5 

neither,  because  you  are  king  of  a nation,  that 
you  are  to  consume  all  the  profits  of  the 
nation’s  work.  Real  kings,  on  the  contrary, 
are  known  invariably  by  their  doing  quite  the 
reverse  of  this, — by  their  taking  the  least  pos- 
sible quantity  of  the  nation’s  work  for  them- 
selves. There  is  no  test  of  real  knighthood 
so  infallible  as  that.  Does  the  crowned  creat- 
ure live  simply,  bravely,  unostentatiously? 
probably  he  is  a King.  Does  he  cover  his 
body  with  jewels,  and  his  table  with  delicates  ? 
in  all  probability  he  is  ?iot  a King.  It  is  pos- 
sible he  may  be,  as  Solomon  was  ; but  that  is 
when  the  nation  shares  his  splendor  with  him. 
Solomon  made  gold,  not  only  to  be  in  his  own 
palace  as  stones,  but  to  be  in  Jerusalem  as 
stones.  But  even  so,  for  the  most  part,  these 
splendid  kinghoods  expire  in  ruin,  and  only 
the  true  kinghoods  live,  which  are  of  royal 
laborers ; who,  both  leading  rough  lives,  estab- 
lish the  true  dynasties.  Conclusively  you  will 
find  that  because  you  are  king  of  a nation,  it 
does  not  follow  that  you  are  to  gather  for 
yourself  all  the  wealth  of  that  nation  ; neither, 
because  you  are  king  of  a small  part  of  the 
nation,  and  lord  over  the  means  of  its  main- 
tenance— over  field,  or  mill,  or  mine,  are  you 


Il6  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

to  take  all  the  produce  of  that  piece  of  the 
foundation  of  national  existence  for  yourself. 

You  will  tell  me  I need  not  preach  against 
these  things,  for  I cannot  mend  them.  No, 
good  friends,  I cannot ; but  you  can,  and  you 
will ; or  something  else  can  and  will.  Do  you 
think  these  phenomena  are  to  stay  always  in 
their  present  power  or  aspect  ? All  history 
shows,  on  the  contrary,  that  to  be  the  exact 
thing  they  never  can  do.  Change  must  come  ; 
but  it  is  ours  to  determine  whether  change  of 
growth,  or  change  of  death.  Shall  the  Parthe- 
non be  in  ruins  on  its  rock,  and  Bolton  priory 
in  its  meadow,  but  these  mills  of  yours  be  the 
consummation  of  the  buildings  of  the  earth, 
and  their  wheels  be  as  the  wheels  of  eternity  ? 
Think  you  that  “ men  may  come,  and  men 
may  go,”  but — mills — go  on  forever  ? Not  so; 
out  of  these,  better  or  worse  shall  come  ; and 
it  is  for  you  to  choose  which. 

I know  that  none  of  this  wrong  is  done  with 
deliberate  purpose.  I know,  on  the  contrary, 
that  you  wish  your  workmen  well ; that  you  do 
much  for  them,  and  that  you  desire  to  do  more 
for  them,  if  you  saw  your  way  to  it  safely.  I 
know  that  many  of  you  have  done,  and  are 
every  day  doing,  whatever  you  feel  to  be  in 


TRAFFIC. 


117 


your  power ; and  that  even  all  this  wrong  and 
misery  are  brought  about  by  a warped  sense  of 
duty,  each  of  you  striving  to  do  his  best,  with- 
out noticing  that  this  best  is  essentially  and 
centrally  the  best  for  himself,  not  for  others. 
And  all  this  has  come  of  the  spreading  of  that 
thrice  accursed,  thrice  impious  doctrine  of  the 
modern  economist,  that  “ To  do  the  best  for 
yourself,  is  finally  to  do  the  best  for  others.” 
Friends,  our  great  Master  said  not  so ; and 
most  absolutely  we  shall  find  this  world  is  not 
made  so.  Indeed,  to  do  the  best  for  others, 
is  finally  to  do  the  best  for  ourselves  ; but  it 
will  not  do  to  have  our  eyes  fixed  on  that  issue. 
The  Pagans  had  got  beyond  that.  Hear  what 
a Pagan  says  of  this  matter  ; hear  what  were, 
perhaps,  the  last  written  words  of  Plato, — if 
not  the  last  actually  written  (for  this  we  can- 
not know),  yet  assuredly  in  fact  and  power  his 
parting  words — in  which,  endeavoring  to  give 
full  crowning  and  harmonious  close  to  all  his 
thoughts,  and  to  speak  the  sum  of  them  by 
the  imagined  sentence  of  the  Great  Spirit,  his 
strength  and  his  heart  fail  him,  and  the  words 
cease,  broken  off  forever.  It  is  the  close  of 
the  dialogue  called  “Critias,”  in  which  he 
describes,  partly  from  real  tradition,  partly  in 


1 1 8 THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


ideal  dream,  the  early  state  of  Athens  ; and 
the  genesis,  and  order,  and  religion,  of  the 
fabled  isle  of  Atlantis  ; in  which  genesis  he 
conceives  the  same  first  perfection  and  final 
degeneracy  of  man,  which  in  our  own  Scrip- 
tural tradition  is  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
Sons  of  God  intermarried  with  the  daughters 
of  men,  for  he  supposes  the  earliest  race  to 
have  been  indeed  the  children  of  God  ; and  to 
have  corrupted  themselves,  until  “ their  spot 
was  not  the  spot  of  his  children.”  And  this, 
he  says,  was  the  end ; that  indeed  “ through 
many  generations,  so  long  as  the  God’s  nature 
in  them  yet  was  full,  they  were  submissive  to 
the  sacred  laws,  and  carried  themselves  lov- 
ingly to  all  that  had  kindred  with  them  in 
divineness  : for  their  uttermost  spirit  was  faith- 
ful and  true,  and  in  every  wise  great ; so  that, 
in  all  meekness  of  wisdom,  they  dealt  with 
each  other,  and  took  all  the  chances  of  life ; 
and  despising  all  things  except  virtue,  they 
cared  little  what  happened  day  by  day,  and 
bore  lightly  the  burden  of  gold  and  of  posses- 
sions ; for  they  saw  that,  if  only  their  common 
love  and  virtue  increased,  all  these  things 
would  be  increased  together  with  them  ; but 
to  set  their  esteem  and  ardent  pursuit  upon 


TRAFFIC. 


119 

material  possession  would  be  to  lose  that  first, 
and  their  virtue  and  affection  together  with  it. 
And  by  such  reasoning,  and  what  of  the  divine 
nature  remained  in  them,  they  gained  all  this 
greatness  of  which  we  have  already  told  ; but 
when  the  God’s  part  of  them  faded  and  became 
extinct,  being  mixed  again  and  again,  and 
effaced  by  the  prevalent  mortality;  and  the 
human  nature  at  last  exceeded,  they  then  be- 
came unable  to  endure  the  courses  of  fortune ; 
and  fell  into  shapelessness  of  life,  and  base- 
ness in  the  sight  of  him  who  could  see,  having 
lost  everything  that  was  fairest  of  their  honor ; 
while  to  the  blind  hearts  which  could  not  dis- 
cern the  true  life,  tending  to  happiness,  it 
seemed  that  they  were  then  chiefly  noble  and 
happy,  being  filled  with  all  iniquity  of  inordi- 
nate possession  and  power.  Whereupon,  the 
God  of  Gods,  whose  Kingdom  is  in  laws,  be- 
holding a once  just  nation  thus  cast  into  mis- 
ery, and  desiring  to  lay  such  punishment  upon 
them  as  might  make  them  repent  into  restrain- 
ing, gathered  together  all  the  gods  into  his 
dwelling-place,  which  from  heaven’s  centre 
overlooks  whatever  has  part  in  creation  ; and 

having  assembled  them,  he  said  ” 

The  rest  is  silence.  So  ended  are  the  last 


120  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


words  of  the  chief  wisdom  of  the  heathen, 
spoken  of  this  idol  of  riches  ; this  idol  of 
yours ; this  golden  image  high  by  measureless 
cubits,  set  up  where  your  green  fields  of  Eng- 
land are  furnace-burnt  into  the  likeness  of  the 
plain  of  Dura : this  idol,  forbidden  to  us,  first 
of  all  idols,  by  your  own  Master  and  faith  ; 
forbidden  to  us  also  by  every  human  lip  that 
has  ever,  in  any  age  or  people,  been  accounted 
of  as  able  to  speak  according  to  the  purposes 
of  God.  Continue  to  make  that  forbidden 
deity  your  principal  one,  and  soon  no  more 
art,  no  more  science,  no  more  pleasure  will  be 
possible.  Catastrophe  will  come ; or  worse 
than  catastrophe,  slow  mouldering  and  wither- 
ing into  Hades.  But  if  you  can  fix  some  con- 
ception of  a true  human  state  of  life  to  be 
striven  for — life  for  all  men  as  for  yourselves 
— if  you  can  determine  some  honest  and  sim- 
pie  order  of  existence  ; following  those  trodden 
ways  of  wisdom,  which  are  pleasantness,  and 
seeking  her  quiet  and  withdrawn  paths,  which 
are  peace ; — then,  and  so  sanctifying  wealth 
into  “ commonwealth,”  all  your  art,  your  lit- 
erature, your  daily  labors,  your  domestic  affec- 
tion, and  citizen’s  duty,  will  join  and  increase 
into  one  magnificent  harmony.  You  will  know 


TRAFFIC . 


12 1 


then  how  to  build,  well  enough  ; you  will  build 
with  stone  well,  but  with  flesh  better ; temples 
not  made  with  hands,  but  riveted  of  hearts  ; 
and  that  kind  of  marble,  crimson-veined,  is  in- 
deed eternal. 


I 


# 

I 


\ 


LECTURE  IIL 


WAR. 


LECTURE  III. 


WAR. 

( 'Delivered  at  the  Royal  Military  A cade  my , Woolwich.) 

Young  soldiers,  I do  not  doubt  but  that 
many  of  you  came  unwillingly  to-night,  and 
many  in  merely  contemptuous  curiosity,  to 
hear  what  a writer  on  painting  could  possibly 
say,  or  would  venture  to  say,  respecting  your 
great  art  of  war.  You  may  well  think  within 
yourselves,  that  a painter  might,  perhaps  with- 
out immodesty,  lecture  younger  painters  upon 
painting,  but  not  young  lawyers  upon  law,  nor 
young  physicians  upon  medicine — least  of  all, 
it  may  seem  to  you,  young  warriors  upon  war. 
And,  indeed,  when  I was  asked  to  address 
you,  I declined  at  first,  and  declined  long  ; for 
I felt  that  you  would  not  be  interested  in  my 
special  business,  and  would  certainly  think 
there  was  small  need  for  me  to  come  to  teach 
you  yours.  Nay,  I knew  that  there  ought  to 
be  no  such  need,  for  the  great  veteran  soldiers 

I25 


126  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


of  England  are  now  men  every  way  so  thought- 
ful, so  noble,  and  so  good,  that  no  other  teach- 
ing than  their  knightly  example,  and  their  few 
words  of  grave  and  tried  counsel  should  be 
either  necessary  for  you,  or  even,  without  as- 
surance of  due  modesty  in  the  offerer,  endured 
by  you. 

But  being  asked,  not  once  nor  twice,  I have 
not  ventured  persistently  to  refuse  ; and  I will 
try,  in  very  few  words,  to  lay  before  you  some 
reason  why  you  should  accept  my  excuse  and 
hear  me  patiently.  You  may  imagine  that 
your  work  is  wholly  foreign  to,  and  separate 
from  mine.  So  far  from  that,  all  the  pure  and 
noble  arts  of  peace  are  founded  on  war ; no 
great  art  ever  yet  rose  on  earth,  but  among  a 
nation  of  soldiers.  There  is  no  art  among  a 
shepherd  people,  if  it  remains  at  peace.  There 
is  no  art  among  an  agricultural  people,  if  it  re- 
mains at  peace.  Commerce  is  barely  consist- 
ent with  fine  art ; but  cannot  produce  it. 
Manufacture  not  only  is  unable  to  produce  it. 
but  invariably  destroys  whatever  seeds  of  it 
exist.  There  is  no  great  art  possible  to  a 
nation  but  that  which  is  based  on  battle. 

Now,  though  I hope  you  love  fighting  for 
its  own  sake,  you  must,  I imagine,  be  surprised 


WAR. 


127 


at  my  assertion  that  there  is  any  such  good 
fruit  of  fighting.  You  supposed,  probably, 
that  your  office  was  to  defend  the  works  of 
peace,  but  certainly  not  to  found  them : nay, 
the  common  course  of  war,  you  may  have 
thought,  was  only  to  destroy  them.  And  truly, 
I who  tell  you  this  of  the  use  of  war,  should 
have  been  the  last  of  men  to  tell  you  so,  had  I 
trusted  my  own  experience  only.  Hear  why  : 
I have  given  a considerable  part  of  my  life  to 
the  investigation  of  Venetian  painting;  and 
the  result  of  that  inquiry  was  my  fixing  upon 
one  man  as  the  greatest  of  all  Venetians,  and 
therefore,  as  I believed,  of  all  painters  whatso- 
ever. I formed  this  faith  (whether  right  or 
wrong  matters  at  present  nothing),  in  the  su- 
premacy of  the  painter  Tintoret,  under  a roof 
covered  with  his  pictures  ; and  of  those  pictures, 
three  of  the  noblest  were  then  in  the  form  of 
ragged  canvas,  mixed  up  with  the  laths  of  the 
roof,  rent  through  by  three  Austrian  shells. 
Now  it  is  not  every  lecturer  who  could  tell  you 
that  he  had  seen  three  of  his  favorite  pictures 
torn  to  rags  by  bombshells.  And  after  such  a 
sight,  it  is  not  every  lecturer  who  would  tell  you 
that,  nevertheless,  war  was  the  foundation  of 
all  great  art. 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


Yet  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  from  any 
careful  comparison  of  the  states  of  great  his- 
toric races  at  different  periods.  Merely  to 
show  you  what  I mean,  I will  sketch  for  you, 
very  briefly,  the  broad  steps  of  the  advance  of 
the  best  art  of  the  world.  The  first  dawn  of  it 
is  in  Egypt ; and  the  power  of  it  is  founded  on 
the  perpetual  contemplation  of  death,  and  of 
future  judgment,  by  the  mind  of  a nation  of 
which  the  ruling  caste  were  priests,  and  the 
second,  soldiers.  The  greatest  works  produced 
by  them  are  sculptures  of  their  kings  going  out 
to  battle,  or  receiving  the  homage  of  conquered 
armies.  And  you  must  remember  also,  as  one 
of  the  great  keys  to  the  splendor  of  the  Egyp- 
tian nation,  that  the  priests  were  not  occupied 
in  theology  only.  Their  theology  was  the  basis 
of  practical  government  and-  law  ; so  that  they 
were  not  so  much  priests  as  religious  judges  : 
the  office  of  Samuel,  among  the  Jews,  being  as 
nearly  as  possible  correspondent  to  theirs. 

All  the  rudiments  of  art  then,  and  much  more 
than  the  rudiments  of  all  science,  are  laid  first 
by  this  great  warrior-nation,  which  held  in 
contempt  all  mechanical  trades,  and  in  absolute 
hatred  the  peaceful  life  of  shepherds.  From 
Egypt  art  passes  directly  into  Greece,  where 


WAR. 


129 


all  poetry,  and  all  painting,  are  nothing  else 
than  the  description,  praise,  or  dramatic  rep- 
resentation of  war  or  of  the  exercises  which 
prepare  for  it,  in  their  connection  with  offices 
of  religion.  All  Greek  institutions  had  first 
respect  to  war ; and  their  conception  of  it,  as 
one  necessary  office  of  all  human  and  divine 
life,  is  expressed  simply  by  the  images  of  their 
guiding  gods.  Apollo  is  the  god  of  all  wisdom 
of  the  intellect ; he  bears  the  arrow  and  the  bow, 
before  he  bears  the  lyre.  Again,  Athena  is  the 
goddess  of  all  wisdom  in  conduct.  It  is  by 
the  helmet  and  the  shield,  oftener  than  by  the 
shuttle,  that  she  is  distinguished  from  other 
deities. 

There  were,  however,  two  great  differences 
in  principle  between  the  Greek  and  the  Egyp- 
tian theories  of  policy.  In  Greece  there  was 
no  soldier  caste  ; every  citizen  was  necessarily 
a soldier.  And,  again,  while  the  Greeks  rightly 
despised  mechanical  arts  as  much  as  the  Egyp- 
tians, they  did  not  make  the  fatal  mistake  of 
despising  agricultural  and  pastoral  life ; but 
perfectly  honored  both.  These  two  conditions 
of  truer  thought  raise  them  quite  into  the  high- 
est rank  of  wise  manhood  that  has  yet  been 
reached ; for  all  our  great  arts,  and  nearly  all 
9 


130  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


our  great  thoughts,  have  been  borrowed  or 
derived  from  them.  Take  away  from  us  what 
they  have  given  ; and  I hardly  can  imagine  how 
low  the  modern  European  would  stand. 

Now,  you  are  to  remember,  in  passing  to  th . 
next  phase  of  history,  that  though  you  must 
have  war  to  produce  art — you  must  also  have 
much  more  than  war  ; namely,  an  art-instinct 
or  genius  in  the  people ; and  that,  though  all 
the  talent  for  painting  in  the  world  won’t  make 
painters  of  you,  unless  you  have  a gift  for 
fighting,  and  none  for  painting.  Now,  in  the 
next  great  dynasty  of  soldiers,  the  art-instinct 
is  wholly  wanting.  I have  not  yet  investigated 
the  Roman  character  enough  to  tell  you  the 
causes  of  this  ; but  I believe,  paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem  to  you,  that,  however  truly  the  Roman 
might  say  of  himself  that  he  was  born  of  Mars, 
and  suckled  by  the  wolf,  he  was  nevertheless, 
at  heart,  more  of  a farmer  than  a soldier.  The 
exercises  of  war  were  with  him  practical,  not 
poetical ; his  poetry  was  in  domestic  life  only, 
and  the  object  of  battle,  “ pacis  imponere 
moreim”  And  the  arts  are  extinguished  in  his 
hands,  and  do  not  rise  again,  until,  with  Gothic 
chivalry,  there  comes  back  into  the  mind  of 
Europe  a passionate  delight  in  war  itself,  for 


WAR. 


J3* 


the  sake  of  war.  And  then,  with  the  romantic 
knighthood  which  can  Imagine  no  other  noble 
employment, — under  the  fighting  kings  of 
France,  England,  and  Spain  • and  under  the 
fighting  dukeships  and  citizenships  of  Italy, 
art  is  born  again,  and  rises  to  her  height  in 
the  great  valleys  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany, 
through  which  there  flows  not  a single  stream, 
from  all  their  Alps  or  Apennines,  that  did  not 
once  run  dark  red  from  battle  : a:.d  it  reaches 
its  culminating  glory  in  the  city  which  gave  to 
history  the  most  intense  type  of  soldiership  yet 
seen  among  men  ; — the  city  whose  armies  were 
led  in  their  assault  by  their  king,  led  through 
it  to  victory  by  their  king,  and  so  led,  though 
that  king  of  theirs  was  blind,  and  in  the  extrem- 
ity of  his  age. 

And  from  this  time  forward,  as  peace  is 
established  or  extended  in  Europe,  the  arts 
decline.  They  reach  an  unparalleled  pitch  of 
costliness,  but  lose  their  life,  enlist  themselves 
at  last  on  the  side  of  luxury  and  various  cor- 
ruption, and,  among  wholly  tranquil  nations, 
wither  utterly  away  ; remaining  only  in  partial 
practice  among  races  who,  like  the  French 
and  us,  have  still  the  minds,  though  we  cannot 
all  live  the  lives,  of  soldiers. 


132  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

“It  may  be  so,”  I can  suppose  that  a 
philanthropist  might  exclaim.  “ Perish  then 
the  arts,  if  they  can  flourish  only  at  such  a cost. 
What  worth  is  there  in  toys  of  canvas  and 
stone,  if  compared  to  the  joy  and  peace  of 
artless  domestic  life  ? ” And  the  answer  is — 
truly,  in  themselves,  none.  But  as  expressions 
of  the  highest  state  of  the  human  spirit,  their 
worth  is  infinite.  As  results  they  may  be 
worthless,  but,  as  signs,  they  are  above  price. 
For  it  is  an  assured  truth  that,  whenever  the 
faculties  of  men  are  at  their  fulness,  they  must 
express  themselves  by  art ; and  to  say  that  a 
state  is  without  such  expression,  is  to  say  that 
it  is  sunk  from  its  proper  level  of  manly  nature. 
So  that,  when  I tell  you  that  war  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  the  arts,  I mean  also  that  it  is  the 
foundation  of  all  the  high  virtues  and  faculties 
of  men. 

It  was  very  strange  to  me  to  discover  this ; 
and  very  dreadful — but  I saw  it  to  be  quite  an 
undeniable  fact.  The  common  notion  that 
peace  and  the  virtues  of  civil  life  flourished  to- 
gether, I found  to  be  wholly  untenable.  Peace 
and  the  vices  of  civil  life  only  flourish  together. 
We  talk  of  peace  and  learning,  and  of  peace 
and  plenty,  and  of  peace  and  civilization  ; but 


WAR. 


133 


I found  that  those  were  not  the  words  which 
the  Muse  of  History  coupled  together  ; that  on 
her  lips,  the  words  were — peace  and  sensuality, 
peace  and  selfishness,  peace  and  corruption, 
peace  and  death.  I found,  in  brief,  that  all 
great  nations  learned  their  truth  of  word,  and, 
strength  of  thought,  in  war ; that  they  were 
nourished  in  war,  and  wasted  by  peace  ; taught 
by  war,  and  deceived  by  peace  ; trained  by  war 
and  betrayed  by  peace  in  a word,  that  they 
were  born  in  war  and  expired  in  peace. 

Yet  now  note  carefully,  in  the  second  place, 
it  is  not  all  war  of  which  this  can  be  said— nor 
all  dragon’s  teeth,  which,  sown,  will  start  up 
into  men.  It  is  not  the  ravage  of  a barbarian 
wolf-flock,  as  under  Genseric  or  Suwarrow; 
nor  the  habitual  restlessness  and  rapine  of 
mountaineers,  as  on  the  old  borders  of  Scot- 
land ; nor  the  occasional  struggle  of  a strong 
peaceful  nation  for  its  life,  as  in  the  wars  of 
the  Swiss  with  Austria ; nor  the  contest  of 
merely  ambitious  nations  for  extent  of  power, 
as  in  the  wars  of  France  under  Napoleon,  or 
the  just  terminated  war  in  America.  None  of 
these  forms  of  war  build  anything  but  tombs. 
But  the  creative  or  foundational  war  is  that  in 
which  the  natural  restlessness  and  love  of  con- 


134  THE  crown  of  wild  olive. 


test  among  men  are  disciplined,  by  consent, 
into  modes  of  beautiful — though  it  may  be 
fatal — play  : in  which  the  natural  ambition  and 
love  of  power  of  men  are  disciplined  into  the 
aggressive  conquest  of  surrounding  evil : and 
in  which  the  natural  instincts  of  self-defence 
are  sanctified  by  the  nobleness  of  the  institu- 
tions, and  purity  of  the  households,  which  they 
are  appointed  to  defend.  To  such  war  as 
this  all  men  are  born  ; in  such  war  as  this  any 
man  may  happily  die ; and  forth  from  such 
war  as  this  have  arisen  throughout  the  extent 
of  past  ages,  all  the  highest  sanctities  and 
virtues  of  humanity. 

I shall  therefore  divide  the  war  of  which  I 
would  speak  to  you  into  three  heads.  War  for 
exercise  or  play  ; war  for  dominion  ; and  war 
for  defence. 

I.  And  first,  of  war  for  exercise  or  play.  I 
speak  of  it  primarily  in  this  light,  because, 
through  all  past  history,  manly  war  has  been 
more  an  exercise  than  anything  else,  among 
the  classes  who  cause,  and  proclaim  it.  It  is 
not  a game  to  the  conscript,  or  the  pressed 
sailor ; but  neither  of  these  are  the  causers  of 
it.  To  the  governor  who  determines  that  war 
shall  be,  and  to  the  youths  who  voluntarily 


WAR. 


J3S 


adopt  it  as  their  profession,  it  has  always  been 
a grand  pastime  ; and  chiefly  pursued  because 
they  had  nothing  else  to  do.  And  this  is  true 
without  any  exception.  No  king  whose  mind 
was  fully  occupied  with  the  development  of 
the  inner  resources  of  his  kingdom,  or  with 
any  other  sufficing  subject  of  thought,  ever 
entered  into  war  but  on  compulsion.  No  youth 
who  was  earnestly  busy  with  any  peaceful  sub- 
ject of  study,  or  set  on  any  serviceable  course 
of  action,  ever  voluntarily  became  a soldier. 
Occupy  him  early,  and  wisely,  in  agriculture 
or  business,  in  science  or  in  literature,  and  he 
will  never  think  of  war  otherwise  than  as  a 
calamity.  But  leave  him  idle  ; and,  the  more 
brave  and  active  and  capable  he  is  by  nature, 
the  more  he  will  thirst  for  some  appointed  field 
for  action  ; and  find,  in  the  passion  and  peril 
of  battle,  the  only  satisfying  fulfilment  of  his 
unoccupied  being.  And  from  the  earliest  in- 
cipient civilization  until  now,  the  population 
of  the  earth  divides  itself,  when  you  look  at  it 
widely,  into  two  races  ; one  of  workers,  and 
the  other  of  players — one  tilling  the  ground, 
manufacturing,  building,  and  otherwise  pro- 
viding for  the  necessities  of  life ; — the  other 
part  proudly  idle,  and  continually  therefore 


136  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


needing  recreation,  in  which  they  use  the  pro- 
ductive and  laborious  orders  partly  as  their 
cattle,  and  partly  as  their  puppets  or  pieces  in 
the  game  of  death. 

Now,  remember,  whatever  virtue  or  good- 
liness there  may  be  in  this  game  of  war,  rightly 
played,  there  is  none  when  you  thus  play  it 
with  a multitude  of  small  human  pawns. 

If  you,  the  gentlemen  of  this  or  any  other 
kingdom,  choose  to  make  your  pastime  of  con- 
test, do  so,  and  welcome ; but  set  not  up  these 
unhappy  peasant-pieces  upon  the  green  fielded 
board.  If  the  wager  is  to  be  of  death,  lay  it 
on  your  own  heads,  not  theirs.  A goodly 
struggle  in  the  Olympic  dust,  though  it  be  the 
dust  of  the  grave,  the  gods  will  look  upon,  and 
be  with  you  in ; but  they  will  not  be  with  you, 
if  you  sit  on  the  sides  of  the  amphitheatre, 
whose  steps  are  the  mountains  of  earth,  whose 
arena  its  valleys,  to  urge  your  peasant  millions 
into  gladiatorial  war.  You  also,  you  tender 
and  delicate  women,  for  whom,  and  by  whose 
command,  all  true  battle  has  been,  and  must 
ever  be  ; you  would  perhaps  shrink  now,  though 
you  need  not,  from  the  thought  of  sitting  as 
queens  above  set  lists  where  the  jousting  game 
might  be  mortal.  How  much  more,  then4 


WAR. 


137 


ought  you  to  shrink  from  the  thought  of  sitting 
above  a theatre  pit  in  which  even  a few  con- 
demned slaves  were  slaying  each  other  only 
for  your  delight.  And  do  you  not  shrink  from 
the  fact  of  sitting  above  a theatre  pit,  where, 
— not  condemned  slaves, — but  the  best  and 
bravest  of  the  poor  sons  of  your  people,  slay 
each  other, — not  man  to  man, — as  the  coupled 
gladiators  ; but  race  to  race,  in  duel  of  gener- 
ations ? You  would  tell  me,  perhaps,  that  you 
do  not  sit  to  see  this  ; and  it  is  indeed  true, 
that  the  women  of  Europe — those  who  have  no 
heart-interest  of  their  own  at  peril  in  the  con- 
test— draw  the  curtains  of  their  boxes,  and 
muffle  the  openings ; so  that  from  the  pit  of 
the  circus  of  slaughter  there  may  reach  them 
only  at  intervals  a half-heard  cry  and  a mur- 
mur as  of  the  wind’s  sighing,  when  myriads  of 
souls  expire.  They  shut  out  the  death-cries  ; 
and  are  happy,  and  talk  wittily  among  them- 
selves. That  is  the  utter  literal  fact  of  what 
our  ladies  do  in  their  pleasant  lives. 

Nay,  you  might  answer,  speaking  for  them — 
“ We  do  not  let  these  wars  come  to  pass  for 
our  play,  nor  by  our  carelessness ; we  cannot 
help  them.  How  can  any  final  quarrel  of 
nations  be  settled  otherwise  dian  by  war  ? ” 


138  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


I cannot  now  delay,  to  tell  you  how  political 
quarrels  might  be  otherwise  settled.  But  grant 
that  they  cannot.  Grant  that  no  law  of  reason 
can  be  understood  by  nations ; no  law  of 
justice  submitted  to  by  them : and  that,  while 
questions  of  a few  acres,  and  of  petty  cash, 
can  be  determined  by  truth  and  equity,  the 
questions  which  are  to  issue  in  the  perishing 
or  saving  of  kingdoms  can  be  determined 
only  by  the  truth  of  the  sword,  and  the  equity 
of  the  rifle.  Grant  this,  and  even  then,  judge 
if  it  will  always  be  necessary  for  you  to  put 
your  quarrel  into  the  hearts  of  your  poor,  and 
sign  your  treaties  with  peasants’  blood.  You 
would  be  ashamed  to  do  this  in  your  own 
private  position  and  power.  Why  should  you 
not  be  ashamed  also  to  do  it  in  public  place  and 
power?  If  you  quarrel  with  your  neighbor, 
and  the  quarrel  be  indeterminable  by  law,  and 
mortal,  you  and  he  do  not  send  your  footmen 
to  Battersea  fields  to  fight  it  out ; nor  do  you 
set  fire  to  his  tenants’  cottages,  nor  spoil  their 
goods.  You  fight  out  your  quarrel  yourselves, 
and  at  your  own  danger,  if  at  all.  And  you  do 
not  think  it  materially  affects  the  arbitrament?, 
that  one  of  you  has  a larger  household  than 
the  other ; so  that,  if  the  servants  or  tenants 


WAR. 


139 


were  brought  into  the  field  with  their  masters, 
the  issue  of  the  contest  could  not  be  doubtful  ? 
You  either  refuse  the  private  duel,  or  you 
practise  it  under  laws  of  honor,  not  of  physical 
force ; that  so  it  may  be,  in  a manner,  justly 
concluded.  Now  the  just  or  unjust  conclusion 
of  the  private  feud  is  of  little  moment,  while 
the  just  or  unjust  conclusion  of  the  public  feud 
is  of  eternal  moment : and  yet,  in  this  public 
quarrel,  you  take  your  servants’  sons  from  their 
arms  to  fight  for  it,  and  your  servants’  food 
from  their  lips  to  support  it ; and  the  black 
seals  on  the  parchment  of  your  treaties  of  peace 
are  the  deserted  hearth  and  the  fruitless  field. 
There  is  a ghastly  ludicrousness  in  this,  as 
there  is  mostly  in  these  wide  and  universal 
crimes.  Hear  the  statement  of  the  very  fact 
of  it  in  the  most  literal  words  of  the  greatest 
of  our  English  thinkers  : — 

“ What,  speaking  in  quite  unofficial  language,  is  the 
net-purport  and  upshot  of  war?  To  my  own  knowl- 
edge, for  example,  there  dwell  and  toil,  in  the  British 
village  of  Dumdrudge,  usually  some  five  hundred  souls. 
From  these,  by  certain  ‘natural  enemies’  of  the 
French,  there  are  successively  selected,  during  the 
French  war,  say  thirty  able-bodied  men.  Dumdrudge, 
at  her  own  expense,  has  suckled  and  nursed  them ; she 
has,  not  without  difficulty  and  sorrow,  fed  them  up  to 


i4o  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


manhood,  and  ever  trained  them  to  crafts,  so  that  one 
can  weave,  another  build,  another  hammer,  and  the 
weakest  can  stand  under  thirty  stone  avoirdupois. 
Nevertheless,  amid  much  weeping  and  swearing,  they 
are  selected ; all  dressed  in  red  ; and  shipped  away,  at 
the  public  charges,  some  two  thousand  miles,  or  say 
only  to  the  south  of  Spain  ; and  fed  there  till  wanted. 

“ And  now  to  that  same  spot  in  the  south  of  Spain 
are  thirty  similar  French  artisans,  from  a French  Dum- 
drudge,  in  like  manner  wending  ; till  at  length,  after  in- 
finite effort,  the  two  parties  come  into  actual  juxtaposi- 
tion ; and  Thirty  stands  fronting  Thirty,  each  with  a 
gun  in  his  hand. 

“ Straightway  the  word  ‘ Fire  ! ’ is  given,  and  they 
blow  the  souls  out  of  one  another,  and  in  place  of  sixty 
brisk  useful  craftsmen,  the  world  has  sixty  dead  carcases, 
which  it  must  bury,  and  anon  shed  tears  for.  Had 
these  men  any  quarrel  ? Busy  as  the  devil  is,  not  the 
smallest ! They  lived  far  enough  apart ; were  the  en- 
tirest  strangers;  nay,  in  so  wide  a universe,  there  was 
even  unconsciously,  by  commerce,  some  mutual  help- 
fulness between  them.  How  then  ? Simpleton  ! their 
governors  had  fallen  out;  and  instead  of  shooting  one 
another,  had  the  cunning  to  make  these  poor  block- 
heads shoot.”  (Sartor  Resartus.) 

Positively,  then,  gentlemen,  the  game  of  bat- 
tle must  not,  and  shall  not,  ultimately  be 
played  this  way.  But  should  it  be  played  any 
way  ? Should  it,  if  not  by  your  servants,  be 
practised  by  yourselves  ? I think,  yes.  Both 


WAR. 


141 


history  and  human  instinct  seem  alike  to  say, 
yes.  All  healthy  men  like  fighting,  and  like 
the  sense  of  danger ; all  brave  women  like  to 
hear  of  their  fighting,  and  of  their  facing  dan- 
ger. This  is  a fixed  instinct  in  the  fine  race 
of  them ; and  I cannot  help  fancying  that  fair 
fight  is  the  best  play  for  them  ; and  that  a tour- 
nament was  a better  game  than  a steeple-chase. 
The  time  may  perhaps  come  in  France  as  well 
as  here,  for  universal  hurdle-races  and  cricket- 
ing : but  I do  not  think  universal  “ crickets  ” 
will  bring  out  the  best  qualities  of  the  nobles 
of  either  country.  I use,  in  such  question,  the 
test  which  I have  adopted,  of  the  connection 
of  war  with  other  arts  ; and  I reflect  how,  as 
a sculptor,  I should  feel,  if  I were  asked  to  de- 
sign a monument  for  a dead  knight,  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  with  a carving  of  a hat  at  one 
end,  and  a ball  at  the  other.  It  may  be  the 
remains  in  me  only  of  savage  Gothic  preju- 
dice ; but  I had  rather  carve  it  with  a shield 
at  one  end,  and  a sword  at  the  other.  And 
this,  observe,  with  no  reference  whatever  to 
any  story  of  duty  done,  or  cause  defended. 
Assume  the  knight  merely  to  have  ridden  out 
occasionally  to  fight  his  neighbor  for  exercise  ; 
assume  him  even  a soldier  of  fortune,  and  to 


142  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


have  gained  his  bread,  and  filled  his  purse,  at 
the  sword’s  point.  Still,  I feel  as  if  it  were, 
somehow,  grander  and  worthier  in  him  to  have 
made  his  bread  by  sword  play  than  any  other 
play ; I had  rather  he  had  made  it  by  thrust- 
ing than  batting  ; — much  more,  than  by  bet- 
ting. Much  rather  that  he  should  ride  war 
horses,  than  back  race  horses  ; and — I say  it 
sternly  and  deliberately — much  rather  would 
I have  him  slay  his  neighbor,  than  cheat  him. 

But  remember,  so  far  as  this  may  be  true, 
the  game  of  war  is  only  that  in  which  the 
full  personal  power  of  the  human  creature  is 
brought  out  in  management  of  its  weapons. 
And  this  for  three  reasons  : — 

First,  the  great  justification  of  this  game  is 
that  it  truly,  when  wejl  played,  determines 
who  is  the  best  man ■; — who  is  the  highest  bred, 
the  most  self-denying,  the  most  fearless,  the 
coolest  of  nerve,  the  swiftest  of  eye  and  hand. 
You  cannot  test  these  qualities  wholly,  unless 
there  is  a clear  possibility  of  the  struggle’s 
ending  in  death.  It  is  only  in  the  fronting 
of  that  condition  that  the  full  trial  of  the  man, 
soul  and  body,  comes  out.  You  may  go  to 
your  game  of  wickets,  or  of  hurdles,  or  of  cards, 
and  any  knavery  that  is  in  you  may  stay  un 


WAR 


M3 


challenged  all  the  while.  But  if  the  play  may 
be  ended  at  any  moment  by  a lance-thrust,  a 
man  will  probably  make  up  his  accounts  a 
little  before  he  enters  it.  Whatever  is  rotten 
and  evil  in  him  will  weaken  his  hand  more  in 
holding  a sword  hilt,  than  in  balancing  a 
billiard  cue  ; and  on  the  whole,  the  habit  of 
living  lightly  hearted,  in  daily  presence  of 
death,  always  has  had,  and  must  have,  a ten- 
dency both  to  the  making  and  testing  of  honest 
men.  But  for  the  final  testing,  observe,  you 
must  make  the  issue  of  battle  strictly  depend- 
ent on  fineness  of  frame,  and  firmness  of 
hand.  You  must  not  make  it  the  question, 
which  of  the  combatants  has  the  longest  gun, 
or  which  has  got  behind  the  biggest  tree,  or 
which  has  the  wind  in  his  face,  or  which  has 
gunpowder  made  by  best  chemists,  or  iron 
smelted  with  the  best  coal,  or  the  angriest 
mob  at  his  back.  Decide  your  battle,  whether 
of  nations,  or  individuals,  on  those  terms  ; — 
and  you  have  only  multiplied  confusion,  and 
added  slaughter  to  iniquity.  But  decide  your 
battle  by  pure  trial  which  has  the  strongest 
arm,  and  steadiest  heart, — and  you  have  gone 
far  to  decide  a great  many  matters  besides, 
and  to  decide  them  righdy. 


144  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

And  the  other  reasons  for  this  mode  of 
decision  of  cause,  are  the  diminution  both  of 
the  material  destructiveness,  or  cost,  and  of 
the  physical  distress  of  war.  For  you  must 
not  think  that  in  speaking  to  you  in  this  (as 
you  may  imagine)  fantastic  praise  of  battle,  I 
have  overlooked  the  conditions  weighing 
against  me.  I pray  all  of  you,  who  have  not 
read,  to  read  with  the  most  earnest  attention, 
Mr.  Helps’ two  essays  on  War  and  Government, 
in  the  first  volume  of  the  last  series  of  “ Friends 
in  Counsel.”  Everything  that  can  be  urged 
against  war  is  there  simply,  exhaustively,  and 
most  graphically  stated.  And  all,  there  urged, 
is  true.  But  the  two  great  counts  of  evil 
alleged  against  war  by  this  most  thoughtful 
writer,  hold  only  against  modern  war.  If  you 
have  to  take  away  masses  of  men  from  all  in- 
dustrial employment, — to  feed  them  by  the 
labor  of  others, — to  move  them  and  provide 
them  with  destructive  machines,  varied  daily 
in  national  rivalship  of  inventive  cost ; if  you 
have  to  ravage  the  country  which  you  attack, 
— to  destroy  for  a score  of  future  years,  its 
roads,  its  woods,  its  cities,  and  its  harbors  ; — 
and  if,  finally,  having  brought  masses  of  men, 
counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  face  to  face, 


WAR. 


J45 


you  tear  those  masses  to  pieces  with  jagged 
shot,  and  leave  the  fragments  of  living  creat- 
ures, countlessly  beyond  all  help  of  surgery,  to 
starve  and  parch,  through  days  of  torture, 
down  into  clots  of  clay — what  book  of  accounts 
shall  record  the  cost  of  your  work  ; — What 
book  of  judgment  sentence  the  guilt  of  it? 

That,  I say,  is  modern  war, — scientific  war, — 
chemical  and  mechanic  war,  worse  even  than 
the  savage’s  poisoned  arrow.  And  yet  you 
will  tell  me,  perhaps,  that  any  other  war  than 
this  is  impossible  now.  It  may  be  so  ; the 
progress  of  science  cannot,  perhaps,  be  other- 
wise registered  than  by  new  facilities  of  de- 
struction ; and  the  brotherly  love  of  our  enlarg- 
ing Christianity  be  only  proved  by  multiplica- 
tion of  murder.  Yet  hear,  for  a moment, 
what  war  was,  in  Pagan  and  ignorant  days  ; — 
what  war  might  yet  be,  if  we  could  extinguish 
our  science  in  darkness,  and  join  the  heathen’s 
practice  to  the  Christian’s  theory.  I read  you 
this  from  a book  which  probably  most  of  you 
know  well,  and  all  ought  to  know — Muller’s 
“ Dorians  ; ” — but  I have  put  the  points  I 
wish  you  to  remember  in  closer  connection 
than  in  his  text. 

“ The  chief  characteristic  of  the  warriors  of 

io 


14.6  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

Sparta  was  great  composure  and  subdued 
strength ; the  violence  (AiVcra)  of  * Aristode- 
mus  and  Isadas  being  considered  as  deserv- 
ing rather  of  blame  than  praise ; and  these 
qualities  in  general  distinguished  the  Greeks 
from  the  northern  Barbarians,  whose  boldness 
always  consisted  in  noise  and  tumult.  Foi 
the  same  reason  the  Spartans  sacrificed  to  the 
Muses  before  an  action ; these  goddesses 
being  expected  to  produce  regularity  and 
order  in  battle  ; as  they  sacrificed  on  the  same 
occasion  in  Crete  to  the  god  of  love,  as  the  con- 
firmer of  mutual  esteem  and  shame.  Every 
man  put  on  a crown,  when  the  band  of  flute- 
players  gave  the  signal  for  attack;  all  the 
shields  of  the  line  glittered  with  their  high 
polish,  and  mingled  their  splendor  with  the 
dark  red  of  the  purple  mantles,  which  were 
meant  both  to  adorn  the  combatant,  and  to 
conceal  the  blood  of  the  wounded ; to  fall 
well  and  decorously  being  an  incentive  the 
more  to  the  most  heroic  valor.  The  conduct 
of  the  Spartans  in  battle  denotes  a high  and 
noble  dispbsition,  which  rejected  all  the  ex- 
tremes of  brutal  rage  The  pursuit  of  the 
enemy  ceased  when  uie  victory  was  com- 
pleted ; and 1 iafter  the  signal  for  retreat  had 


WAR. 


*47 


been  given,  all  hostilities  ceased.  The  spoil- 
ing  of  arms,  at  least  during  the  battle,  was 
also  interdicted  ; and  the  consecration  of  the 
spoils  of  slain  enemies  to  the  gods,  as,  in 
general,  all  rejoicings  for  victory,  were  con- 
sidered as  ill-omened.” 

Such  was  the  war  of  the  greatest  soldiers 
who  prayed  to  heathen  gods.  What  Christian 
war  is,  preached  by  Christian  ministers,  let 
any  one  tell  you  who  saw  the  sacred  crowning, 
and  heard  the  sacred  flute-playing,  and  was 
inspired  and  sanctified  by  the  divinely- 
measured  and  musical  language,  of  any  North 
American  regiment  preparing  for  its  charge. 
And  what  is  the  relative  cost  of  life  in  Pagan 
and  Christian  wars,  let  this  one  fact  tell  you : 
— the  Spartans  won  the  decisive  battle  of 
Corinth  with  the  loss  of  eight  men  ; the 
victors  at  indecisive  Gettysburg  confess  to 
the  loss  of  30,000. 

II.  I pass  now  to  our  second  order  of  war, 
the  commonest  among  men,  that  undertaken 
in  desire  of  dominion.  And  let  me  ask  you 
to  think  for  a few  moments  what  the  real 
meaning  of  this  desire  of  dominion  is — first  in 
the  minds  of  kings — then  in  that  of  nations. 

Now,  mind  you  this  first, — that  I speak 


148  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


either  about  kings,  or  masses  of  men,  with  a 
fixed  conviction  that  human  nature  is  a noble 
and  beautiful  thing ; not  a foul  nor  a base 
thing.  All  the  sin  of  men  I esteem  as  their 
disease,  not  their  nature , as  a folly  which 
may  be  prevented,  not  a necessity  which  must 
be  accepted.  And  my  wonder,  even  when 
things  are  at  their  worst,  is  always  at  the 
height#  which  this  human  nature  can  attain. 
Thinking  it  high,  I find  it  always  a higher 
thing  than  I thought  it ; while  those  who  think 
it  low,  find  it,  and  will  find  it,  always  lower 
than  they  thought  it : the  fact  being,  that  it  is 
infinite,  and  capable  of  infinite  height  and  in- 
finite fall ; but  the  nature  of  it — and  here  is 
the  faith  which  I would  have  you  hold  with 
me — the  nature  of  it  is  in  the  nobleness,  not 
in  the  catastrophe. 

Take  the  faith  in  its  utmost  terms.  When 
the  captain  of  the  “ London  ” shook  hands 
with  his  mate  saying  “ God  speed  you  ! I will 
go  down  with  my  passengers,”  that  I believe 
to  be  “ human  nature.”  He  does  not  do  it 
from  any  religious  motive — from  any  hope  of 
reward,  or  any  fear  of  punishment ; he  does  it 
because  he  is  a man.  But  when  a mother, 
living  among  the  fair  fields  of  merry  England, 


WAR. 


149 


gives  her  two-year-old  child  to  be  suffocated 
under  a mattress  in  her  inner  room,  while  the 
said  mother  waits  and  talks  outside ; that  I 
believe  to  be  not  human  nature.  You  have 
the  two  extremes  there,  shortly.  And  you, 
men,  and  mothers,  who  are  here  face  to  face 
with  me  to-night,  I call  upon  you  to  say  which 
of  these  is  human,  and  which  inhuman — which 
“ natural,”  and  which  “ unnatural  ? ” Choose 
your  creed  at  once,  I beseech  you  : — choose  it 
with  unshaken  choice — choose  it  forever. 
Will  you  take,  for  foundation  of  act  and  hope, 
the  faith  that  this  man  was  such  as  God  made 
him,  or  that  this  woman  was  such  as  God 
made  her?  Which  of  them  has  failed  from 
their  nature — from  their  present,  possible, 
actual  nature ; — not  their  nature  of  long  ago, 
but  their  nature  of  now  ? Which  has  betrayed 
it — falsified  it  ? Did  the  guardian  who  died  in 
his  trust  die  inhumanly,  and  as  a fool ; and 
did  the  murderess  of  her  child  fulfil  the  law  of 
her  being  ? Choose,  I say  ; infinitude  of 
hoices  hang  upon  this.  You  have  had  false 
prophets  among  you — for  centuries  you  have 
h^d  them — solemnly  warned  against  them 
though  you  were  ; false  prophets,  who  have 
told  you  that  all  men  are  nothing  but  fiends  or 


150  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


wolves,  half  beast,  half  devil.  Believe  that, 
and  indeed  you  may  sink  to  that.  But  refuse 
that,  and  have  j:aith  that  God  “ made  you  up* 
right,”  though  you  have  sought  out  many  in- 
ventions ; so  you  will  strive  daily  to  become 
more  what  your  Maker  meant  and  means  you 
to  be,  and  daily  gives  you  also  the  power  to 
be — and  you  will  cling  more  and  more  to  the 
nobleness  and  virtue  that  is  in  you,  saying, 
“ My  righteousness  I hold  fast,  and  will  not 
let  it  go.” 

I have  put  this  to  you  as  a choice,  as  if  you 
might  hold  either  of  these  creeds  you  liked 
best.  But  there  is  in  reality  no  choice  for 
you;  the  facts  being  quite  easily  ascertain- 
able. You  have  no  business  to  think  about 
this  matter,  or  to  choose  in  it.  The  broad 
fact  is,  that  a human  creature  of  the  highest 
race,  and  most  perfect  as  a human  thing,  is 
invariably  both  kind  and  true  ; and  that  as 
you  lower  the  race,  you  get  cruelty  and  false- 
ness, as  you  get  deformity  : and  this  so  steadily 
and  assuredly,  that  the  two  great  words  which, 
in  their  first  use,  meant  only  perfection  of  race; 
have  come,  by  consequence  of  the  invariable 
connection  of  virtue  with  the  fine  human 
nature,  both  to  signify  benevolence  of  disposi- 


WAR. 


ISI 

tion.  The  word  generous,  and  the  word  gen- 
tle, both,  in  their  origin,  meant  only  “ of  pure 
race,”  but  because  charity  and  tenderness  are 
inseparable  from  this  purity  of  blood,  the 
words  which  once  stood  only  for  pride,  now 
stand  as  synonyms  for  virtue. 

Now,  this  being  the  true  power  of  our  in- 
herent humanity,  and  seeing  that  all  the  aim 
of  education  should  be  to  develop  this  ; — and 
seeing  also  what  magnificent  self-sacrifice  the 
higher  classes  of  men  are  capable  of,  for  any 
cause  that  they  understand  or  feel, — it  is 
wholly  inconceivable  to  me  how  well-educated 
princes,  who  ought  to  be  of  all  gentlemen  the 
gentlest,  and  of  all  nobles  the  most  generous, 
and  whose  title  of  royalty  means  only  their 
function  of  doing  every  man  <k  right ” — how 
these,  I say,  throughout  h^tory,  should  so 
rarely  pronounce  themselves  on  the  side  of 
the  poor  and  of  justice,  but  continually  maintain 
themselves  and  their  own  interests  by  oppres- 
sion of  the  poor,  and  by  wresting  of  justice  ; 
and  how  this  should  be  accepted  as  so  natural, 
that  the  word  loyalty,  which  means  faithful- 
ness to  law,  is  used  as  if  it  were  only  the  duty 
of  a people  to  be  loyal  to  their  king,  and  not 
the  duty  of  a king  to  be  infinitely  more  loyal 


152  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

to  his  people.  How  comes  it  to  pass  that  a 
captain  will  die  with  his  passengers,  and  lean 
over  the  gunwale  to  give  the  parting  boat  its 
course ; but  that  a king  will  not  usually  die 
with,  much  less  for , his  passengers, — thinks  it 
rather  incumbent  on  his  passengers,  in  any 
number,  to  die  for  him  ? Think,  I beseech 
you,  of  the  wonder  of  this.  The  sea  captain, 
not  captain  by  divine  right,  but  only  by  com- 
pany’s appointment ; — not  a man  of  royal  de- 
scent, but  only  a plebeian  who  can  steer ; — 
not  with  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  him,  but 
with  feeble  chance,  depending  on  one  poor 
boat,  of  his  name  being  ever  heard  above  the 
wash  of  the  fatal  waves  ; — not  with  the  cause 
of  a nation  resting  on  his  act,  but  helpless  to 
save  so  much  as  a child  from  among  the  lost 
crowd  with  whom  he  resolves  to  be  lost, — yet 
goes  down  quietly  to  his  grave,  rather  than 
break  his  faith  to  these  few  emigrants.  But 
your  captain  by  divine  right, — your  captain 
with  the  hues  of  a hundred  shields  of  kings 
upon  his  breast, — your  captain  whose  every 
deed,  brave  or  base,  will  be  illuminated  or 
branded  forever  before  unescapable  eyes  of 
men, — your  captain  whose  every  thought  and 
act  are  beneficent,  or  fatal,  from  sunrising  to 


WAR. 


*53 


setting,  blessing  as  the  sunshine,  or  shadow- 
ing as  the  night, — this  captain,  as  you  find 
him  in  history,  for  the  most  part  thinks  only 
how  he  may  tax  his  passengers,  and  sit  at 
most  ease  in  his  state  cabin ! 

For  observe,  if  there  had  been  indeed  in 
the  hearts  of  the  rulers  of  great  multitudes  of 
men  any  such  conception  of  work  for  the 
good  of  those  under  their  command,  as  there 
is  in  the  good  and  thoughtful  masters  of  any 
small  company  of  men,  not  only  wars  for  the 
sake  of  mere  increase  of  power  could  never 
take  place,  but  our  idea  of  power  itself  would 
be  entirely  altered.  Do  you  suppose  that  to 
think  and  act  even  for  a million  of  men,  to 
hear  their  complaint,  watch  their  weaknesses, 
restrain  their  vices,  make  laws  for  them,  lead 
them,  day  by  day,  to  purer  life,  is  not  enough 
for  one  man’s  work  ? If  any  of  us  were  abso- 
lute lord  only  of  a district  of  a hundred  miles 
square,  and  were  resolved  on  doing  our  utmost 
for  it ; making  it  feed  as  large  a number  of 
people  as  possible ; making  every  clod  pro- 
ductive, and  every  rock  defensive,  and  every 
human  being  happy ; should  we  not  have 
enough  on  our  hands  think  you  ? But  if  the 
ruler  has  any  other  aim  than  this  ; if,  careless 


154  THE  CROWN-  of  wild  olive . 

of  the  result  of  his  interference,  he  desire 
only  the  authority  to  interfere ; and,  regard- 
less of  what  is  ill-done  or  well-done,  cares 
only  that  it  shall  be  done  at  his  bidding  ; — if 
he  would  rather  do  two  hundred  miles’  space 
of  mischief,  than  one  hundred  miles’  space  of 
good,  of  course  he  will  try  to  add  to  his  ter- 
ritory ; and  to  add  inimitably.  But  does  he 
add  to  his  power  ? Do  you  call  it  power  in  a 
child,  if  he  is  allowed  to  play  with  the  wheels 
and  bands  of  some  vast  engine,  pleased  with 
their  murmur  and  whirl,  till  his  unwise  touch, 
wandering  where  it  ought  not,  scatters  beam 
and  wheel  into  ruin  ? Yet  what  machine  is  so 
vast,  so  incognizable,  as  the  working  of  the 
mind  of  a nation  ; what  child’s  touch  so  wan- 
ton, as  the  word  of  a selfish  king?  And  yet, 
how  long  have  we  allowed  the  historian  to  speak 
of  the  extent  of  the  calamity  a man  causes,  as  a 
just  ground  for  his  pride  ; and  to  extol  him  as 
the  greatest  prince,  who  is  only  the  centre  of 
the  widest  error.  Follow  out  this  thought  by 
yourselves ; and  you  will  find  that  all  power, 
properly  so  called,  is  wise  and  benevolent. 
There  may  be  capacity  in  a drifting  fire-ship 
to  destroy  a fleet ; there  may  be  venom  enough 
in  a dead  body  to  infect  a nation  : — but  which 


WAR. 


*55 


of  you,  the  most  ambitious,  would  desire  a 
drifting  kinghood,  robed  in  consuming  fire,  or 
a poison-dipped  sceptre  whose  touch  was  mor- 
tal ? There  is  no  true  potency,  remember, 
but  that  of  help ; nor  true  ambition,  but  ambi« 
tion  to  save. 

And  then,  observe  farther,  this  true  power, 
the  power  of  saving,  depends  neither  on  mul- 
titude of  men,  nor  on  extent  of  territory.  We 
are  continually  assuming  that  nations  become 
strong  according  to  their  numbers.  They  in- 
deed become  so,  if  those  numbers  can  be 
made  of  one  mind  ; but  how  are  you  sure  you 
can  stay  them  in  one  mind,  and  keep  them 
from  having  north  and  south  minds  ? Grant 
them  unanimous,  how  know  you  they  will  be 
unanimous  in  right  ? If  they  are  unanimous 
in  wrong,  the  more  they  are,  essentially  the 
weaker  they  are.  Or,  suppose  that  they  can 
neither  be  of  one  mind,  nor  of  two  minds,  but 
can  only  be  of  no  mind  ? Suppose  they  are  a 
mere  helpless  mob ; tottering  into  precipitant 
catastrophe,  like  a wagon  load  of  stones  when 
the  wheel  comes  off.  Dangerous  enough  for 
their  neighbors,  certainly,  but  not  “ powerful.” 

Neither  does  strength  depend  on  extent  of 
territory,  any  more  than  upon  number  of 


156  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

population.  Take  up  your  maps  when  you  go 
home  this  evening, — put  the  cluster  of  British 
Isles  beside  the  mass  of  South  America  ; and 
then  consider  whether  any  race  of  men  need 
care  how  much  ground  they  stand  upon.  The 
strength  is  in  the  men,  and  in  their  unity  and 
virtue,  not  in  their  standing  room : a little 
group  of  wise  hearts  is  better  than  a wilderness 
full  of  fools ; and  only  that  nation  gains  true 
territory,  which  gains  itself. 

And  now  for  the  brief  practical  outcome  of 
all  this.  Remember,  no  government  is  ulti- 
mately strong,  but  in  proportion  to  its  kindness 
and  justice ; and  that  a nation  does  not 
strengthen,  by  merely  multiplying  and  diffusing 
itself.  We  have  not  strengthened  as  yet,  by 
multiplying  into  America.  Nay,  even  when  it 
has  not  to  encounter  the  separating  conditions 
of  emigration,  a nation  need  not  boast  itself  of 
multiplying  on  its  own  ground,  if  it  multiplies 
only  as  flies  or  locusts  do,  with  the  god  of  flies 
for  its  god.  It  multiplies  its  strength  only  by 
increasing  as  one  great  family,  in  perfect  fel- 
lowship and  brotherhood.  And  lastly,  it  does 
not  strengthen  itself  by  seizing  dominion  over 
races  whom  it  cannot  benefit.  Austria  is  not 


WAR. 


IS7 


strengthened,  but  weakened,  by  her  grasp  of 
Lombardy;  and  whatever  apparent  increase 
of  majesty  and  of  wealth  may  have  accrued  to 
us  from  the  possession  of  India,  whether  these 
prove  to  us  ultimately  power  or  weakness,  de- 
pends wholly  on  the  degree  in  which  our  in- 
fluence on  the  native  race  shall  be  benevolent 
and  exalting.  But,  as  it  is  at  their  own  peril 
that  any  race  extends  their  dominion  in  mere 
desire  of  power,  so  it  is  at  their  own  still 
greater  peril  that  they  refuse  to  undertake 
aggressive  war,  according  to  their  force,  when- 
ever they  are  assured  that  their  authority  would 
be  helpful  and  protective.  Nor  need'you  listen 
to  any  sophistical  objection  of  the  impossibility 
of  knowing  when  a people’s  help  is  needed,  or 
when  not.  Make  your  national  conscience 
clean,  and  your  national  eyes  will  soon  be 
clear.  No  man  who  is  truly  ready  to  take 
part  in  a noble  quarrel  will  ever  stand  long  in 
doubt  by  whom,  or  in  what  cause,  his  aid  is 
needed.  I hold  it  my  duty  to  make  no  polit- 
ical statement  of  any  special  bearing  in  this 
presence  ; but  I tell  you  broadly  and  boldly, 
that,  within  these  last  ten  years,  we  English 
have,  as  a knightly  nation,  lost  our  spurs  : we 
have  fought  where  we  should  not  have  fought, 


158  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


for  gain  ; and  we  have  been  passive  where  we 
should  not  have  been  passive,  for  fear.  I tell 
you  that  the  principle  of  non-intervention,  as 
now  preached  among  us,  is  as  selfish  and 
cruel  as  the  worst  frenzy  of  conquest,  and  dif- 
fers from  it  only  by  being  not  only  malignant, 
but  dastardly. 

I know,  however,  that  my  opinions  on  this 
subject  differ  too  widely  from  those  ordinarily 
held,  to  be  any  farther  intruded  upon  you  ; and 
therefore  I pass  lastly  to  examine  the  conditions 
of  the  third  kind  of  noble  war  ; — war  waged 
simply  for  the  defence  of  the  country  in  which 
we  were  born,  and  for  the  maintenance  and 
execution  of  her  laws,  by  whomsoever  threat- 
ened or  defied.  It  is  to  this  duty  that  I sup- 
pose most  men  entering  the  army  consider 
themselves  in  reality  to  be  bound,  and  I want 
you  now  to  reflect  what  the  laws  of  mere  de- 
fence are  ; and  what  the  soldier’s  duty,  as  now 
understood,  or  supposed  to  be  understood. 
You  have  solemnly  devoted  yourselves  to  be 
English  soldiers,  for  the  guardianship  of  Eng- 
land. I want  you  to  feel  what  this  vow  of 
yours  indeed  means,  or  is  gradually  coming  to 
mean.  You  take  it  upon  you,  first,  while  you 
are  sentimental  schoolboys  ; you  go  into  your 


WAR. 


*59 


military  convent,  or  barracks,  just  as  a girl 
goes  into  her  convent  while  she  is  a sentimen- 
tal schoolgirl ; neither  of  you  then  know  what 
you  are  about,  though  both  the  good  soldiers 
and  good  nuns  make  the  best  of  it  afterwards. 
You  don’t  understand  perhaps  why  I call  you 
“ sentimental  ” schoolboys,  when  you  go  into 
the  army  ? Because,  on  the  whole,  it  is  love 
of  adventure,  of  excitement,  of  fine  dress  and 
of  the  pride  of  fame,  all  which  are  sentimental 
motives,  which  chiefly  make  a boy  like  going 
into  the  Guards  better  than  into  a counting- 
house.  You  fancy,  perhaps,  that  there  is  a 
severe  sense  of  duty  mixed  with  these  peacocky 
motives  ? And  in  the  best  of  you,  there  is  ; 
but  do  not  think  that  it  is  principal.  If  you 
cared  to  do  your  duty  to  your  country  in  a 
prosaic  and  unsentimental  way,  depend  upon 
it,  there  is  now  truer  duty  to  be  done  in  rais- 
ing harvests,  than  in  burning  them  ; more  in 
building  houses,  than  in  selling  them — more 
in  winning  money  by  your  own  work,  where- 
with to  help  men,  than  in  taxing  other  people’s 
\ ork,  for  money  wherewith  to  slay  men  ; more 
duty,  finally,  in  honest  and  unselfish  living  than 
in  honest  and  unselfish  dying,  though  that  seems 
to  your  boys’  eyes  the  bravest.  So  far  then, 


160  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


as  for  your  own  honor  and  the  honor  of  your 
families,  you  choose  brave  death  in  a red  coat 
before  brave  life  in  a black  one,  you  are  senti- 
mental ; and  now  see  what  this  passionate 
vow  of  yours  comes  to.  For  a little  while  you 
ride,  and  you  hunt  tigers  or  savages,  you  shoot, 
and  are  shot ; you  are  happy,  and  proud,  always, 
and  honored  and  wept  if  you  die  ; and  you  are 
satisfied  with  your  life,  and  with  the  end  of  it ; 
believing,  on  the  whole,  that  good  rather  than 
harm  of  it  comes  to  others,  and  much  pleasure 
to  you.  But  as  the  sense  of  duty  enters  into 
your  forming  minds,  the  vow  takes  another 
aspect.  You  find  that  you  have  put  yourselves 
into  the  hand  of  your  country  as  a weapon. 
You  have  vowed  to  strike,  when  she  bids  you, 
and  to  stay  scabbarded  when  she  bids  you  ; 
all  that  you  need  answer  for  is,  that  you  fail 
not  in  her  grasp.  And  there  is  goodness  in 
this,  and  greatness,  if  you  can  trust  the  hand 
and  heart  of  the  Britomart  who  has  braced  you 
to  her  side,  and  are  assured  that  when  she 
leaves  you  sheathed  in  darkness,  there  is  no 
need  for  your  flash  to  the  sun.  But  remember, 
good  and  noble  as  this  state  may  be,  it  ;S  a 
state  of  slavery.  There  are  different  kind  3 of 
slaves  and  different  masters.  Some  slaves  are 


WAR. 


161 


scourged  to  their  work  by  whips,  others  are 
scourged  to  it  by  restlessness  or  ambition.  It 
does  not  matter  what  the  whip  is  ; it  is  none  the 
less  a whip,  because  you  have  cut  thongs  for 
it  out  of  your  own  souls : the  fact,  so  far,  of 
slavery,  is  in  being  driven  to  your  work  with- 
out thought,  at  another’s  bidding.  Again, 
some  slaves  are  bought  with  money,  and  others 
with  praise.  It  matters  not  what  the  purchase- 
money  is.  The  distinguishing  sign  of  slavery 
is  to  have  a price,  and  be  bought  for  it.  Again, 
it  matters  not  what  kind  of  work  you  are  set 
on  ; some  slaves  are  set  to  forced  diggings, 
others  to  forced  marches  ; some  dig  furrows, 
others  field-work,  and  others  graves.  Some 
press  the  juice  of  reeds,  and  some  the  juice  of 
vines,  and  some  the  blood  of  men.  The  fact 
of  the  captivity  is  the  same  whatever  work  we 
are  set  upon,  though  the  fruits  of  the  toil  may 
be  different.  But,  remember,  in  thus  vowing 
ourselves  to  be  the  slaves  of  any  master,  it 
ought  to  be  some  subject  of  forethought  with 
us,  what  work  he  is  likely  to  put  us  upon,  You 
may  think  that  the  whole  duty  of  a soldier  is  to 
be  passive,  that  it  is  the  country  you  have  .eft 
behind  who  is  to  command,  and  you  have  only  to 
obey.  But  are  you  sure  that  you  have  left  all 
IS 


162  the  crown  of  wild  olive. 


your  country  behind,  or  that  the  part  of  it  you 
have  so  left  is  indeed  the  best  part  of  it : 
Suppose — and,  remember,  it  is  quite  conceiv- 
able— that  you  yourselves  are  indeed  the  best 
part  of  England  ; that  you,  who  have  become 
the  slaves,  ought  to  have  been  the  masters ; 
and  that  those  who  are  the  masters,  ought  to 
have  been  the  slaves ! If  it  is  a noble  and 
whole-hearted  England,  whose  bidding  you  are 
bound  to  do,  it  is  well ; but  if  you  are  your- 
selves the  best  of  her  heart,  and  the  England 
you  have  left  be  but  a half-hearted  England, 
how  say  you  of  your  obedience  ? You  were  too 
proud  to  become  shopkeepers : are  you  satisfied 
then  to  become  servants  of  shopkeepers  ? 
You  were  too  proud  to  become  merchants  or 
farmers  yourselves : will  you  have  merchants 
or  farmers  then  for  your  field  marshals  ? You 
had  no  gifts  of  special  grace  for  Exeter  Hall : 
will  you  have  some  gifted  person  thereat  for 
your  commander-in-chief,  to  judge  of  your 
work,  and  reward  ? You  imagine  yourselves 
to  be  the  army  of  England  : how  if  you  should 
find  yourselves,  at  last,  only  the  police  of  her 
manufacturing  towns,  and  the  beadles  of  her 
little  Bethels? 

It  is  not  so  yet,  nor  will  be  so,  I trust,  for 


WAR. 


163 


ever ; but  what  I want  you  to  see,  and  to  be 
assured  of,  is,  that  the  ideal  of  soldiership  is 
not  mere  passive  obedience  and  bravery  ; that, 
so  far  from  this,  no  country  is  in  a healthy 
state  which  has  separated,  even  in  a small 
degree,  her  civil  from  her  military  power.  All 
states  of  the  world,  however  great,  fall  at  once 
when  they  use  mercenary  armies  ; and  although 
it  is  a less  instant  form  of  error  (because  in- 
volving no  national  taint  of  cowardice),  it  is 
yet  an  error  no  less  ultimately  fatal — it  is  the 
error  especially  of  modern  times,  of  which  we 
cannot  yet  know  all  the  calamitous  con- 
sequences—to  take  away  the  best  blood  and 
strength  of  the  nation,  all  the  soul-substance 
of  it  that  is  brave,  and  careless  of  reward,  and 
scornful  of  pain,  and  faithful  in  trust ; and  to 
cast  that  into  steel,  and  make  a mere  sword  of 
it ; taking  away  ks  voice  and  will  ; but  to  keep 
the  worst  part  of  the  nation — whatever  is  cow- 
ardly, avaricious,  sensual,  and  faithless — and 
to  give  to  this  the  voice,  to  this  the  authority, 
to  this  the  chief  privilege,  where  there  is  least 
capacity,  of  thought.  The  fulfilment  of  your 
vow  for  the  defence  of  England  will  by  no 
means  consist  in  carrying  out  such  a system. 
You  are  not  true  soldiers,  if  you  only  mean  to 


1 64  THE  crown  of  wild  olive. 


stand  at  a shop  door,  to  protect  shop-boys 
who  are  cheating  inside.  A soldier’s  vow  to 
his  country  is  that  he  will  die  for  the  guardian- 
ship of  her  domestic  virtue,  of  her  righteous 
laws,  and  of  her  anyway  challenged  or  endan- 
gered honor.  A state  without  virtue,  without 
laws,  and  without  honor,  he  is  bound  not  to 
defend  ; nay,  bound  to  redress  by  his  own 
right  hand  that  which  he  sees  to  be  base  in 
her.  So  sternly  is  the  law  of  Nature  and  life, 
that  a nation  once  utterly  corrupt  can  only  be 
redeemed  by  a military  despotism — never  by 
talking,  nor  by  its  free  effort.  And  the  health 
of  any  state  consists  simply  in  this : that  in  it, 
those  who  are  wisest  shall  also  be  strongest;  C 
its  rulers  should  be  also  its  soldiers  ; or,  rather, 
by  force  of  intellect  more  than  of  sword,  its 
soldiers"  its  rulers.  Whatever  the  hold  which 
the  aristocracy  of  England  has  on  the  heart  of 
England,  in  that  they  are  still  always  in  front 
of  her  battles,  this  hold  will  not  be  enough, 
unless  they  are  also  in  front  of  her  thoughts. 
And  truly  her  thoughts  need  good  captain’s 
reading  now,  if  ever  ! Do  you  know  what,  by 
this  beautiful  division  of  labor  (her  brave  men 
fighting,  and  her  cowards  thinking),  she  has 
come  at  last  to  think  ? Here  is  a bit  of  paper 


WAR. 


i65 

in  my  hand,*  a good  one  too,  and  an  honest 
one  ; quite  representative  of  the  best  common 
public  thought  of  England  at  this  moment ; 
and  it  is  holding  forth  in  one  of  its  leaders 
upon  our  “ social  welfare  ” — upon  our  “ vivid 
life  ” — upon  the  “ political  supremacy  of  Great 
Britain.”  And  what  do  you  think  all  these  are 
owing  to  ? To  what  our  English  sires  hav£ 
done  for  us,  and  taught  us,  age  after  age  ? No 
not  to  that.  To  our  honesty  of  heart,  or  cool- 
ness of  head,  or  steadiness  of  will  ? No  : not 
• 

* I do  not  care  to  refer  to  the  journal  quoted,  because 
the  article  was  unworthy  of  its  general  tone,  though  in 
order  to  enable  the  audience  to  verify  the  quoted  sen* 
tence,  I left  the  number  containing  it  on  the  table,  when 
I delivered  this  lecture.  But  a saying  of  Baron  Liebig’s, 
quoted  at  the  head  of  a leader  on  the  same  subject  in 
the  Daily  Telegraph  of  January  11,  1866,  summarily 
digests  and  presents  the  maximum  folly  of  modern 
thought  in  this  respect.  “ Civilization,”  says  the  Baron, 
“ is  the  economy  of  power,  and  English  power  is  coal.” 
Not  altogether  sc,  my  chemical  friend.  Civilization  is 
the  making  of  civil  persons,  which  is  a kind  of  distilla- 
tion of  which  alembics  are  incapable,  and  does  not  at 
all  imply  the  turning  of  a small  company  of  gentlemen 
into  a large  company  of  ironmongers.  And  English 
power  (what  little  of  it  may  be  left),  is  by  no  means 
coal,  but,  indeed,  of  that  which,  “ when  the  whole  world 
turns  to  coal,  then  chiefly  livesd* 


166  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

to  these.  To  our  thinkers,  or  our  statesmen, 
or  our  poets,  or  our  captains,  or  our  martyrs, 
or  the  patient  labor  of  our  poor  ? No  : not  to 
these  ; or  at  least  not  to  these  in  any  chief 
measure.  Nay,  says  the  journal,  “more  than 
any  agency,  it  is  the  cheapness  and  abundance 
of  our  coal  which  have  made  us  what  we  are.” 
If  it  be  so,  then  “ ashes  to  ashes  ” be  our 
epitaph  ! and  the  sooner  the  better.  I tell 
you,  gentlemen  of  England,  if  ever  you  would 
have  your  country  breathe  the  pure  breath  of 
heaven  again,  and  receive  again  a soul  into 
her  body,  instead  of  rotting  into  a carcase, 
blown  up  in  the  belly  with  carbonic  acid  (and 
great  that  way),  you  must  think,  and  feel,  for 
your  England,  as  well  as  fight  for  her  : you 
must  teach  her  that  all  the  true  greatness  she 
ever  had,  or  ever  can  have,  she  won  while  her 
fields  were  green  and  her  faces  ruddy — that 
greatness  is  still  possible  for  Englishmen,  even 
though  the  ground  be  not  hollow  under  their 
feet,  nor  the  sky  black  over  their  heads  ; — and 
that,  when  the  day  comes  for  their  country  to 
lay  her  honors  in  the  dust,  her  crest  will  not 
rise  from  it  more  loftily  because  it  is  dust  of 
coal.  Gentlemen,  I tell  you,  solemnly,  that 
the  day  is  coming  when  the  soldiers  of  England 


WAR.  167 

must  be  her  tutors  ; and  the  captains  of  her 
army,  captains  also  of  her  mind. 

And  now,  remember,  you  soldier  youths, 
who  are  thus  in  all  ways  the  hope  of  your 
country ; or  must  be,  if  she  have  any  hope : 
remember  that  your  fitness  for  all  future  trust 
depends  upon  what  you  are  now.  No  good 
soldier  in  his  old  age  was  ever  careless  or  indo- 
lent in  his  youth.  Many  a giddy  and  thought- 
less boy  has  become  a good  bishop,  or  a good 
lawyer,  or  a good  merchant ; but  no  such  an 
one  ever  became  a good  general.  I challenge 
you,  in  all  history,  to  find  a record  of  a good 
soldier  who  was  not  grave  and  earnest  in  his 
youth.  And,  in  general,  I have  no  patience 
with  people  who  talk  about  the  thoughtless- 
ness of  youth  ” indulgently.  I had  infinitely 
rather  hear  of  thoughtless  old  age,  and  the 
indulgence  due  to  that . When  a man  has  done 
his  work,  and  nothing  can  any  way  be  materi- 
ally altered  in  his  fate,  let  him  forget  his  toil, 
and  jest  with  his  fate,  if  he  will ; but  what  ex- 
cuse can  you  find  for  wilfulness  of  thought,  at 
the  very  time  when  every  crisis  of  future 
fortune  hangs  on  your  decisions  ? A youth 
thoughtless  ! when  all  the  happiness  of  his  home 
forever  depends  on  the  chances,  or  the  pas- 


1 68  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

sions,  of  an  hour  ! A youth  thoughtless  ! when 
the  career  of  all  his  days  depends  on  the  op- 
portunity of  a moment ! A youth  thoughtless! 
when  his  every  act  is  a foundation-stone  of 
future  conduct,  and  every  imagination  a fount- 
ain of  life  or  death  ! Be  thoughtless  in  a?iy 
after  years,  rather  than  now — though,  indeed, 
there  is  only  one  place  where  a man  may  be 
nobly  thoughtless, — his  death-bed.  No  think- 
ing should  ever  be  left  to  be  done  there. 

Having,  then,  resolved  that  you  will  not 
waste  recklessly,  but  earnestly  use,  these  early 
days  of  yours,  remember  that  all  the  duties  of 
her  children  to  England  may  be  summed  in 
two  words — industry,  and  honor.  I say  first, 
industry,  for  it  is  in  this  that  soldier  youth 
are  especially  tempted  to  fail.  Yet,  surely, 
there  is  no  reason,  because  your  life  may 
possibly  or  probably  be  shorter  than  other 
men’s,  that  you  should  therefore  waste  more 
recklessly  the  portion  of  it  that  is  granted  you  ; 
neither  do  the  duties  of  your  profession,  which 
require  you  to  keep  your  bodies  strong,  in  any 
wise  involve  the  keeping  of  your  minds  weak. 
So  far  from  that,  the  experience,  the  hardship, 
and  the  activity  of  a soldier’s  life  render  his 
powers  of  thought  more  accurate  than  those  of 


WAR. 


169 

other  men  ; and  while,  for  others,  all  knowl- 
edge is  often  little  more  than  a means  of 
amusement,  there  is  no  form  of  science 
which  a soldier  may  not  at  some  time  or 
other  find  bearing  on  business  of  life  and 
death.  A young  mathematician  may  be  ex- 
cused for  languor  in  studying  curves  to  be 
described  only  with  a pencil ; but  not  in  trac- 
ing those  which  are  to  be  described  with  a 
» rocket.  Your  knowledge  of  a wholesome  herb 
may  involve  the  feeding  of  an  army  ; and  ac- 
quaintance with  an  obscure  point  of  geography, 
the  success  of  a campaign.  Never  waste  an 
instant’s  time,  therefore  ; the  sin  of  idleness 
is  a thousand-fold  greater  in  you  than  in  other 
youths  ; for  the  fates  of  those  who  will  one 
day  be  under  your  command  hang  upon  your 
knowledge ; lost  moments  now  will  be  lost 
lives  then,  and  every  instant  which  you  care- 
lessly take  for  play,  you  buy  with  blood. 
But  there  is  one  way  of  wasting  time,  of  all 
the  vilest,  because  it  wastes,  not  time  only,  but 
the  interest  and  energy  of  your  minds.  Of  all 
the  ungentlemanly  habits  into  which  you  can 
fall,  the  vilest  is  betting,  or  interesting  your- 
selves in  the  issues  of  betting.  It  unites  nearly 
every  condition  of  folly  and  vice ; you  con- 


170  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

centrate  your  interest  upon  a matter  of  chance, 
instead  of  upon  a subject  of  true  knowledge  ; 
and  you  back  opinions  which  you  have  no 
grounds  for  forming,  merely  because  they  are 
your  own.  All  the  insolence  of  egotism  is  in 
this  ; and  so  far  as  the  love  of  excitement  is 
complicated  with  the  hope  of  winning  money, 
you  turn  yourselves  into  the  basest  sort  of 
tradesmen — those  who  live  by  speculation. 
Were  there  no  other  ground  for  industry,  this 
would  be  a sufficient  one  ; that  it  protected 
you  from  the  temptation  to  so  scandalous  a 
vice.  Work  faithfully,  and  you  will  put  your- 
selves in  possession  of  a glorious  and  enlarg- 
ing happiness  ; not  such  as  can  be  won  by  the 
speed  of  a horse,  or  marred  by  the  obliquity 
of  a ball. 

First,  then,  by  industry  you  must  fulfil  your 
vow  to  your  country;  but  all  industry  and 
earnestness  will  be  useless  unless  they  are 
consecrated  by  your  resolution  to  be  in  all 
things  men  of  honor ; not  honor  in  the  com- 
mon sense  only,  but  in  the  highest.  Rest  on 
the  force  of  the  two  main  words  in  the  great 
verse,  integer  vitae,  scelerisque  purus . You 
have  vowed  your  life  to  England ; give  it  her 
wholly — a bright,  Stainless,  perfect  life — a 


WAR. 


171 


knightly  life.  Because  you  have  to  fight  with 
machines  instead  of  lances,  there  may  be  a 
necessity  for  more  ghastly  danger,  but  there  is 
none  for  less  worthiness  of  character,  than  in 
olden  time.  You  may  be  true  knights  yet, 
though  perhaps  not  equites ; you  may  have  to 
call  yourselves  “ cannonry  ” instead  of  “ chiv- 
alry,” but  that  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
not  call  yourselves  true  men.  So  the  first 
thing  you  have  to  see  to  in  becoming  soldiers 
is  that  you  make  yourselves  wholly  true. 
Courage  is  a mere  matter  of  course  among  any 
ordinarily  well-born  youths  ; but  neither  truth 
nor  gentleness  is  matter  of  course.  You  must 
bind  them  like  shields  about  your  necks  ; you 
must  write  them  on  the  tables  of  your  hearts. 
Though  it  be  not  exacted  of  you,  yet  exact  it 
of  yourselves,  this  vow  of  stainless  truth. 
Your  hearts  are,  if  you  leave  them  unstirred, 
as  tombs  in  which  a god  lies  buried.  Vow 
yourselves  crusaders  to  redeem  that  sacred 
sepulchre.  And  remember,  before  all  things 
— for  no  other  memory  will  be  so  protective  of 
you — that  the  highest  law  of  this  knightly 
truth  is  that  under  which  it  is  vowed  to  women. 
Whomsoever  else  you  deceive,  whomsoever 
you  injure,  whomsoever  you  leave  unaided, 


172  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

you  must  not  deceive,  nor  injure,  nor  leave 
unaided,  according  to  your  power,  any  woman 
of  whatever  rank.  Believe  me,  every  virtue  of 
the  higher  phases  of  manly  character  begins 
in  this  ; — in  truth  and  modesty  before  the  face 
of  all  maidens  ; in  truth  and  pity,  or  truth  and 
reverence,  to  all  womanhood. 

And  now  let  me  turn  for  a moment  to  you, 
— wives  and  maidens,  who  are  the  souls  of 
soldiers  ; to  you, — mothers,  who  have  devoted 
your  children  to  the  great  hierarchy  of  war. 
Let  me  ask  you  to  consider  what  part  you 
have  to  take  for  the  aid  of  those  who  love 
you  ; for  if  you  fail  in  your  part  they  cannot 
fulfil  theirs  ; such  absolute  helpmates  you  are 
that  no  man  can  stand  without  that  help,  nor 
labor  in  his  own  strength. 

I know  your  hearts,  and  that  the  truth  of 
them  never  fails  when  an  hour  of  trial  comes 
which  you  recognize  for  such.  But  you  know 
not  when  the  hour  of  trial  first  finds  you,  nor 
when  it  verily  finds  you.  You  imagine  that 
you  are  only  called  upon  to  wait  and  suffer  ; 
to  surrender  and  to  mourn.  You  know  that 
you  must  not  weaken  the  hearts  of  your  hus- 
bands and  lovers,  even  by  the  one  fear  of 
which  those  hearts  are  capable, — the  fear  of 


WAR. 


*73 


parting  from  you,  or  of  causing  you  grief. 
Through  weary  years  of  separation  ; through 
fearful  expectancies  of  unknown  fate  ; through 
the  tenfold  bitterness  of  the  sorrow  which 
might  so  easily  have  been  joy,  and  the  tenfold 
yearning  for  glorious  life  struck  down  in  its 
prime — through  all  these  agonies  you  fail  not, 
and  never  will  fail.  But  your  trial  is  not  in 
these.  To  be  heroic  in  danger  is  little  ; — you 
are  Englishwomen.  To  be  heroic  in  change 
and  sway  of  fortune  is  little  ; — for  do  you  not 
love  ? To  be  patient  through  the  great  chasm 
and  pause  of  loss  is  little  ; for  do  you  not  still 
love  in  heaven  ? But  to  be  heroic  in  happi- 
ness ; to  bear  yourselves  gravely  and  right- 
eously in  the  dazzling  of  the  sunshine  of 
morning  ; not  to  forget  the  God  in  whom  you 
trust,  when  He  gives  you  most ; not  to  fail 
those  who  trust  you,  when  they  seem  to  need 
you  least ; this  is  the  difficult  fortitude.  It  is 
not  in  the  pining  of  absence,  not  in  the  peril 
of  battle,  not  in  the  wasting  of  sickness,  that 
your  prayer  should  be  most  passionate,  or 
your  guardianship  most  tender.  Pray,  mothers 
and  maidens,  for  your  young  soldiers  in  the 
bloom  of  their  pride  ; pray  for  them,  while  the 
only  dangers  round  them  are  in  their  own 


174  THE  crown  of  wild  olive . 

wayward  wills  ; watch  you,  and  pray,  when 
they  have  to  face,  not  death,  but  temptation. 
But  it  is  this  fortitude  also  for  which  there  is 
the  crowning  reward.  Believe  me,  the  whole 
course  and  character  of  your  lovers’  lives  is  in 
your  hands  ; what  you  would  have  them  be, 
they  shall  be,  if  you  not  only  desire  to  have 
them  so,  but  deserve  to  have  them  so ; for 
they  are  but  mirrors  in  which  you  will  see 
yourselves  imaged.  If  you  are  frivolous,  they 
will  be  so  also  ; if  you  have  no  understanding 
of  the  scope  of  their  duty,  they  also  will  for- 
get it;  they  will  listen, — they  can  listen, — to 
no  other  interpretation  of  it  than  that  uttered 
from  your  lips.  Bid  them  be  brave  ; — they 
will  be  brave  for  you ; bid  them  be  cowards  ; 
and  how  noble  soever  they  be,  they  will  quail 
for  you.  Bid  them  be  wise,  and  they  will  be 
wise  for  you  ; mock  at  their  counsel,  and  they 
will  be  fools  for  you  : such  and  so  absolute 
is  your  rule  over  them.  You  fancy,  perhaps, 
as  you  have  been  told  so  often,  that  a wife’s 
rule  should  only  be  over  her  husband’s  house, 
not  over  his  mind.  AM,  no  ! the  true  rule  is 
just  the  reverse  of  that ; a true  wife,  in  her 
husband’s  house,  is  his  servant;  it  is  in  his 
heart  that  she  is  queen.  Whatever  of  the  best 


WAR. 


*75 

he  can  conceive,  it  is  her  part  to  be ; whatever 
of  highest  he  can  hope,  it  is  hers  to  promise  ; 
all  that  is  dark  in  him  she  must  purge  into 
purity ; all  that  is  failing  in  him  she  must 
strengthen  into  truth  : from  her,  through  all 
the  world’s  clamor,  he  must  win  his  praise ; 
in  her,  through  all  the  world’s  warfare,  he  must 
find  his  peace. 

And,  now,  but  one  word  more.  You  may 
wonder,  perhaps,  that  I have  spoken  all  this 
night  in  praise  of  war.  Yet,  truly,  if  it  might 
be,  I,  for  one,  would  fain  join  in  the  cadence 
of  hammer-strokes  that  should  beat  swords 
into  ploughshares  : and  that  this  cannot  be,  is 
not  the  fault  of  us  men.  It  is  your  fault 
Wholly  yours.  Only  by  your  command,  or  by 
your  permission,  can  any  contest  take  place 
among  us.  And  the  real,  final,  reason  for  all 
the  poverty,  misery,  and  rage  of  battle, 
throughout  Europe,  is  simply  that  you  women, 
however  good,  however  religious,  however  self- 
sacrificing  for  those  whom  you  love,  are  too 
selfish  and  too  thoughtless  to  take  pains  for 
any  creature  out  of  your  own  immediate  cir- 
cles. You  fancy  that  you  are  sorry  for  the 
pain  of  others.  Now  I just  tell  you  this,  that 
if  the  usual  course  of  war,  instead  of  unroof- 


176  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

ing  peasants’  houses,  and  ravaging  peasants’ 
fields,  merely  broke  the  china  upon  your  own 
drawing-room  tables,  no  war  in  civilized  coun- 
tries would  last  a week.  I tell  you  more,  that 
at  whatever  moment  you  chose  to  put  a 
period  to  war,  you  could  do  it  with  less 
trouble  than  you  take  any  day  to  go  out  to 
dinner.  You  know,  or  at  least  you  might 
know  if  you  would  think,  that  every  battle  you 
hear  of  has  made  many  widows  and  orphans. 
We  have,  none  of  us,  heart  enough  truly  to 
mourn  with  these.  But  at  least  we  might  put 
on  the  outer  symbols  of  mourning  with  them. 
Let  but  every  Christian  lady  who  has  con- 
science towards  God,  vow  that  she  will  mourn, 
at  least  outwardly,  for  His  killed  creatures. 
Your  praying  is  useless,  and  your  church- 
going mere  mockery  of  God,  if  you  have  not 
plain  obedience  in  you  enough  for  this.  Let 
every  lady  in  the  upper  classes  of  civilized 
Europe  simply  vow,  that,  while  any  cruel  war 
proceeds,  she  will  wear  black  ; — a mute’s  black, 
— with  no  jewel,  no  ornament,  no  excuse  for, 
or  evasion  into,  prettiness. — I tell  you  again, 
no  war  would  last  a week. 

And  lastly.  You  women  of  England  are  all 
now  shrieking  with  one  voice. — you  and  your 


WAR. 


J77 


clergymen  together, — because  you  hear  of  your 
Bibles  being  attacked.  If  you  choose  to 
obey  your  Bibles,  you  will  never  care  who 
attacks  them.  It  is  just  because  you  never 
fulfil  a single  downright  precept  of  the  Book, 
that  you  are  so  careful  for  its  credit : and  just 
because  you  don’t  care  to  obey  its  whole  words, 
that  you  are  so  particular  about  the  letters  of 
them.  The  Bible  tells  you  to  dress  plainly, — 
and  you  are  mad  for  finery  ; the  Bible  tells 
you  to  have  pity  on  the  poor, — and  you  crush 
them  under  your  carriage-wheels  ; the  Bible 
tells  you  to  do  judgment  and  justice, — and 
you  do  not  know,  nor  care  to  know,  so  much 
as  what  the  Bible  word  “ justice  ” means. 
Do  but  learn  so  much  of  God’s  truth  as  that 
comes  to ; know  what  He  means  when  He 
tells  you  to  be  just : and  teach  your  sons, 
that  their  bravery  is  but  a fool’s  boast,  and 
their  deeds  but  a firebrand’s  tossing,  unless 
they  are  indeed  Just  men,  and  Perfect  in  the 
fear  of  God  ; and  you  will  soon  have  no  more 
war,  unless  it  be  indeed  such  as  is  willed  by 
Him,  of  whom,  though  Prince  of  Peace,  it  is 
also  written,  “ In  Righteousness  He  doth 
judge,  and  make  war.” 

12 


LECTURE  IV. 

7 HE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND. 


LECTURE  IV. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND. 

(Delivered  at  the  R.  A.  Institution , Woolwich , December 

14,  1869.) 

I would  fain  have  left  to  the  frank  ex- 
pression of  the  moment,  but  fear  I could 
not  have  found  clear  words — I cannot  easily 
find  them,  even  deliberately, — to  tell  you  how 
glad  I am,  and  yet  how  ashamed,  to  accept 
your  permission  to  speak  to  you.  Ashamed 
of  appearing  to  think  that  I can  tell  you  any 
truth  which  you  have  not  more  deeply  felt 
than  I ; but  glad  in  the  thought  that  my  less 
experience,  and  way  of  life  sheltered  from  the 
trials,  and  free  from  the  responsibilities  of 
yours,  may  have  left  me  with  something  of  a 
child’s  power  of  help  to  you  ; a sureness  of 
hope,  which  may  perhaps  be  the  one  thing 
that  can  be  helpful  to  men  who  have  done  too 
much  not  to  have  often  failed  in  doing  all 
that  they  desired.  And  indeed,  even  the  most 
hopeful  of  us  cannot  but  now  be  in  manf 

181 


1 82  THE  CROWN-  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


things  apprehensive.  For  this  at  least  we  all 
know  too  well,  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a 
great  political  crisis,  if  not  of  political  change. 
That  a struggle  is  approaching  between  the 
newly-risen  power  of  democracy  and  the  ap- 
parently departing  power  of  feudalism ; and 
another  struggle,  no  less  imminent,  and  far 
more  dangerous,  between  wealth  and  pau- 
perism. These  two  quarrels  are  constantly 
thought  of  as  the  same.  They  are  being 
fought  together,  and  an  apparently  common 
interest  unites  for  the  most  part  the  million- 
aire with  the  noble,  in  resistance  to  a multi- 
tude, crying,  part  of  it  for  bread  and  part  of  it 
for  liberty. 

And  yet  no  two  quarrels  can  be  more 
distinct.  Riches — so  far  from  being  necessary 
to  noblesse — are  adverse  to  it.  So  utterly 
adverse,  that  the  first  character  of  all  the 
Nobilities  which  have  founded  great  dynasties 
in  the  world  is  to  be  poor ; — often  poor  by 
oath — always  poor  by  generosity.  And  of 
every  true  knight  in  the  chivalric  ages,  the  first 
thing  history  tells  you  is,  that  he  never  kept 
treasure  for  himself. 

Thus  the  causes  of  wealth  and  noblesse 
are  not  the  same ; but  opposite.  On  the 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 183 

other  hand,  the  causes  of  anarchy  and  of  the 
poor  are  not  the  same,  but  opposite.  Side  by 
side,  in  the  same  rank,  are  now  indeed  set  the 
pride  that  revolts  against  authority,  and  the 
misery  that  appeals  against  avarice.  But,  so 
far  from  being  a common  cause,  all  anarchy 
is  the  forerunner  of  poverty,  and  all 
prosperity  begins  in  obedience.  So  that, 
thus,  it  has  become  impossible  to  give  due 
support  to  the  cause  of  order,  without  seem- 
ing to  countenance  injury;  and  impossible  to 
plead  justly  the  claims  of  sorrow,  without 
seeming  to  plead  also  for  those  of  licence. 

Let  me  try,  then,  to  put  in  very  brief  terms 
the  real  plan  of  this  various  quarrel,  and  the 
truth  of  the  cause  on  each  side.  Let  us  face 
that  full  truth,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  decide 
what  part,  according  to  our  power,  we  should 
take  in  the  quarrel. 

First.  For  eleven  hundred  years,  all 
but  five,  since  Charlemagne  set  on  his  head 
the  Lombard  crown,  the  body  of  European 
people  have  submitted  patiently  to  be  gov- 
erned generally  by  kings — always  by  single 
leaders  of  some  kind.  But  for  the  last  fifty 
years  they  have  begun  to  suspect,  and  of  late 
they  have  many  of  them  concluded,  that  they 


184  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


have  been  on  the  whole  ill-governed,  or  misgov- 
erned, by  their  kings.  Whereupon  they  say, 
more  and  more  widely,  “ Let  us  henceforth 
have  no  kings  ; and  no  government  at  all.” 

Now  we  said,  we  must  face  the  full  truth  of 
the  matter,  in  order  to  see  what  we  are  to  do. 
And  the  truth  is  that  the  people  have  been 
misgoverned  ; — that  very  little  is  to  be  said, 
hitherto,  for  most  of  their  masters — and  that 
certainly  in  many  places  they  will  try  their 
new  system  of  “ no  masters  : ” — and  as  that 
arrangement  will  be  delightful  to  all  foolish 
persons,  and,  at  first,  profitable  to  all  wicked 
ones, — and  as  these  classes  are  not  wanting 
or  unimportant  in  any  human  society, — the  ex- 
periment is  likely  to  be  tried  extensively. 
And  the  world  may  be  quite  content  to  endure 
much  suffering  with  this  fresh  hope,  and  re- 
tain its  faith  in  anarchy,  whatever  comes  of  it, 
till  it  can  endure  no  more. 

Then,  secondly.  The  people  have  be- 
gun to  suspect  that  one  particular  form  of 
this  past  misgovernment  has  been,  that  their 
masters  have  set  them  to  do  all  the  work, 
and  have  themselves  taken  all  the  wages.  In 
a word,  that  what  was  called  governing  them, 
meant  only  wearing  fine  clothes,  and  living  on 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 185 

gpod  fare  at  their  expense.  And  I am  sorry 
to  say,  the  people  are  quite  right  in  this  opin- 
ion also.  If  you  inquire  into  the  vital  fact  of 
the  matter,  this  you  will  find  to  be  the  con- 
stant structure  of  European  society  for  the 
thousand  years  of  the  feudal  system  ; it  was 
divided  into  peasants  who  lived  by  working ; 
priests  who  lived  by  begging ; and  knights 
who  lived  by  pillaging ; and  as  the  luminous 
public  mind  becomes  gradually  cognizant  of 
these  facts,  it  will  assuredly  not  suffer  things 
to  be  altogether  arranged  that  way  any  more  ; 
and  the  devising  of  other  ways  will  be  an 
agitating  business ; especially  because  the 
first  impression  of  the  intelligent  populace  is, 
that  whereas,  in  the  dark  ages,  half  the  nation 
lived  idle,  in  the  bright  ages  to  come,  the 
whole  of  it  may. 

Now,  thirdly — and  here  is  much  the 
worst  phase  of  the  crisis.  This  past  system 
of  misgovernment,  especially  during  the  last 
three  hundred  years,  has  prepared,  by  its 
neglect,  a class  among  the  lower  orders  which 
it  is  now  peculiarly  difficult  to  govern.  It 
deservedly  lost  their  respect — but  that  was 
the  least  part  of  mischief.  The  deadly  part  of 
it  was,  that  the  lower  orders  lost  their  habit, 


186  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


and  at  last  their  faculty,  of  respect ; — lost  the 
very  capability  of  reverence,  which  is  the  most 
precious  part  of  the  human  soul.  Exactly  in 
the  degree  in  which  you  can  find  creatures, 
greater  than  yourself,  to  look  up  to,  in  that 
degree,  you  are  ennobled  yourself,  and,  in 
that  degree,  happy.  If  you  could  live  always 
in  the  presence  of  archangels,  you  would  be 
happier  than  in  that  of  men ; but  even  if  only 
in  the  company  of  admirable  knights  and 
beautiful  ladies,  the  more  noble  and  bright 
they  were,  and  the  more  you  could  reverence 
their  virtue,  the  happier  you  would  be.  On 
the  contrary,  if  you  were  condemned  to  live 
among  a multitude  of  idiots,  dumb,  distorted, 
and  malicious,  you  would  not  be  happy  in  the 
constant  sense  of  your  own  superiority.  Thus 
all  real  joy  and  power  of  progress  in  humanity 
depend  on  finding  something  to  reverence, 
and  all  the  baseness  and  misery  of  humanity 
begin  in  a habit  of  disdain.  Now,  by  general 
misgovernment,  I repeat,  we  have  created  in 
Europe  a vast  populace,  and  out  of  Europe  a 
still  vaster  one,  which  has  lost  even  the  power 
and  conception  of  reverence  ;*■ — which  exists 

* Compare  Time  and  Tide,  § 169,  and  Fors  Clavigera 
Letter  XIV.  page  9. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 187 

only  in  the  worship  of  itself — which  can 
neither  see  anything  beautiful  around  it,  nor 
conceive  anything  virtuous  above  it;  which 
has,  towards  all  goodness  and  greatness,  no 
other  feelings  than  those  of  the  lowest  creat- 
ures— fear,  hatred,  or  hunger ; a populace 
which  has  sunk  below  your  appeal  in  their 
nature,  as  it  has  risen  beyond  your  power  in 
their  multitude ; — whom  you  can  now  no 
more  charm  than  you  can  the  adder,  nor  dis- 
cipline, than  you  can  the  summer  fly. 

It  is  a crisis,  gentlemen  ; and  time  to  think 
of  it.  I have  roughly  and  broadly  put  it  be- 
fore you  in  its  darkness.  Let  us  look  what 
we  may  find  of  light. 

Only  the  other  day,  in  a journal  which 
is  a fairly  representative  exponent  of  the  Con- 
servatism^ our  day,  and  for  the  most  part 
not  at  all  in  favor  of  strikes  or  other  popular 
proceedings  ; only  about  three  weeks  since, 
there  was  a leader,  with  this,  or  a similar,  title 
— “ What  is  to  become  of  the  House  of 
Lords  ? ” It  startled  me,  for  it  seemed  as  if 
we  were  going  even  faster  than  I had  thought, 
when  such  a question  was  put  as  a subject  of 
quite  open  debate,  in  a journal  meant  chiefly 
for  the  reading  of  the  middle  and  upper  classes. 


1 88  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


Open  or  not — the  debate  is  near.  What  is 
to  become  of  them  ? And  the  answ.er  to  such 
question  depends  first  on  their  being  able  to 
answer  another  question — “What  is  the  use 
of  them  ? ” For  some  time  back,  I think  the 
theory  of  the  nation  has  been,  that  they  are 
useful  as  impediments  to  business,  so  as  to 
give  time  for  second  thoughts.  But  the  na- 
tion is  getting  impatient  of  impediments  to 
business ; and  certainly,  sooner  or  later,  will 
think  it  needless  to  maintain  these  expensive 
obstacles  to  its  humors.  And  I have  not 
heard,  either  in  public,  or  from  any  of  them- 
selves, a clear  expression  of  their  own  concep- 
tion of  their  use.  So  that  it  seems  thus  to  be- 
come needful  for  all  men  to  tell  them,  as  our 
one  quite  clear-sighted  teacher,  Carlyle,  has 
been  telling  us  for  many  a year,  that  the  use 
of  the  Lords  of  a country  is  to  govern  the  coun- 
try. If  they  answer  that  use,  the  country  will 
rejoice  in  keeping  them  ; if  not,  that  will  be- 
come of  them  which  must  of  all  things  found 
to  have  lost  their  serviceableness. 

Here,  therefore,  is  the  one  question,  at 
this  crisis,  for  them,  and  for  us.  Will  they  be 
lords  indeed,  and  give  us  laws — dukes  indeed, 
and  give  us  guiding — princes  indeed,  and  give 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND.  189 

us  beginning,  of  truer  dynasty,  which  shall  not 
be  soiled  by  covetousness,  nor  disordered  by 
iniquity  ? Have  they  themselves  sunk  so  far 
as  not  to  hope  this  ? Are  there  yet  any  among 
them  who  can  stand  forward  with  open  Eng- 
lish brows,  and  say, — So  far  as  in  me  lies,  I 
will  govern  with  my  might,  not  for  Dieu  et  mon 
Droit,  but  for  the  first  grand  reading  of  the 
war  cry  from  which  that  was  corrupted,  “ Dieu 
et  Droit”?  Among  them  I know  there  are 
some — among  you,  soldiers  of  England,  I know 
there  are  many,  who  can  do  this ; and  in  you 
is  our  trust.  I,  one  of  the  lower  people  of 
your  country,  ask  of  you  in  their  name, — you 
whom  I will  not  any  more  call  soldiers,  but  by 
the  truer  name  of  Knights  ; — Equites  of  Eng- 
land,— how  many  yet  of  you  are  there,  knights 
errant  now  beyond  all  former  fields  of  danger 
— knights  patient  now  beyond  all  former  endur- 
ance ; who  still  retain  the  ancient  and  eternal 
purpose  of  knighthood,  to  subdue  the  wicked, 
and  aid  the  weak?  To  them,  be  they  few  or 
many,  we  English  people  call  for  help  to  the 
wretchedness,  and  for  rule  over  the  baseness, 
of  multitudes  desolate  and  deceived,  shrieking 
to  one  another,  this  new  gospel  of  their  new 
religion.  “ Let  the  weak  do  as  they  can,  and 
the  wicked  as  they  will.” 


igo  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

I can  hear  you  saying  in  your  hearts, 
even  the  bravest  of  you,  “ The  time  is  past 
for  all  that.”  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  so.  The 
time  has  come  for  more  than  all  that.  Hither- 
to, soldiers  have  given  their  lives  for  false 
fame,  and  for  cruel  power.  The  day  is  now 
when  they  must  give  their  lives  for  true  fame, 
and  for  beneficent  power : and  the  work  is 
near  every  one  of  you — close  beside  you — the 
means  of  it  even  thrust  into  your  hands. 
The  people  are  crying  to  you  for  command, 
and  you  stand  there  at  pause,  and  silent. 
You  think  they  don’t  want  to  be  commanded  : 
try  them  ; determine  what  is  needful  for  them 
— honorable  for  them;  show  it  them,  promise 
to  bring  them  to  it,  and  they  will  follow  you 
through  fire.  “ Govern  us,”  they  cry  with  on*? 
heart,  though  many  minds.  They  can  be 
governed  still,  these  English ; they  are  men 
still ; nor  gnats,  nor  serpents.  They  love 
their  old  ways  yet,  and  their  old  masters,  and 
their  old  land.  They  would  fain  live  in  it,  as 
many  as  may  stay  there,  if  you  will  show  them 
how,  there,  to  live ; — or  show  them  even,  how, 
there,  like  Englishmen,  to  die. 

“ To  live  in  it,  as  many  as  may  I ” Ho* 
many  do  you  think  may  ? How  many 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND. 


I9I 

can  ? How  many  do  you  want  to  live  there  ? 
As  masters,  your  first  object  must  be  to  in- 
crease your  power ; and  in  what  does  the 
power  of  a country  consist  ? Will  you  have 
dominion  over  its  stones,  or  over  its  clouds, 
or  over  its  souls  ? What  do  you  mean  by  a 
great  nation,  but  a great  multitude  of  men 
who  are  true  to  each  other,  and  strong,  and  of 
worth?  Now  you  can  increase  the  multitude 
only  definitely — your  island  has  only  so  much 
standing  room — but  you  can  increase  the 
worth  /^definitely.  It  is  but  a little  island  ; — 
suppose,  little  as  it  is,  you  were  to  fill  it  with 
friends?  You  may,  and  that  easily.  You 
must,  and  that  speedily ; or  there  will  be  an 
end  to  this  England  of  ours,  and  to  all  its 
loves  and  enmities. 

To  fill  this  little  island  with  true  friends 
— men  brave,  wise  and  happy ! Is  it  so 
impossible,  think  you,  after  the  world’s 
eighteen  hundred  years  of  Christianity,  and 
our  own  thousand  years  of  toil,  to  fill  only 
this  little  white  gleaming  crag  with  happy 
creatures,  helpful  to  each  other  ? Africa,  and 
India,  and  the  Brazilian  wide- watered  plain 
are  these  not  wide  enough  for  the  ignorance 
of  our  race  ? have  they  not  space  enough  for 


192  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

its  pain  ? Must  we  remain  here  also  savage, — - 
here  at  enmity  with  each  other, — here  foodless, 
houseless,  in  rags,  in  dust,  and  without  hope, 
as  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  us  are 
lying  ? Do  not  think  it,  gentlemen.  The 
thought  that  it  is  inevitable  is  the  last  in- 
fidelity; infidelity  not  to  God  only,  but  to 
every  creature  and  every  law  that  He  has 
made.  Are  we  to  think  that  the  earth  was 
only  shaped  to  be  a globe  of  torture  ; and 
that  there  cannot  be  one  spot  of  it  where 
peace  can  rest,  or  justice  reign  ? Where  are 
men  ever  to  be  happy,  if  not  in  England  ? by 
whom  shall  they  ever  be  taught  to  do  right,  if 
not  by  you  ? Are  we  not  of  a race  first  among 
the  strong  ones  of  the  earth  ; the  blood  in  us 
incapable  of  weariness,  unconquerable  by 
grief?  Have  we  not  a history  of  which  we 
can  hardly  think  without  becoming  insolent  in 
our  just  pride  of  it  ? Can  we  dare,  without 
passing  every  limit  of  courtesy  to  other  nations, 
to  say  how  much  more  we  have  to  be  proud 
of  in  our  ancestors  than  they  ? Among  our 
ancient  monarchs,  great  crimes  stand  out  as 
monstrous  and  strange.  But  their  valor,  and, 
according  to  their  understanding,  their  be- 
nevolence, are  constant.  The  Wars  of  the 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 193 

Roses,  which  are  as  a fearful  crimson  shadow 
on  our  land,  represent  the  normal  condition 
of  other  nations  ; while  from  the  days  of  the 
Heptarchy  downwards  we  have  had  examples 
given  us,  in  all  ranks,  of  the  most  varied  and 
exalted  virtue ; a heap  of  treasure  that  no 
moth  can  corrupt,  and  which  even  our 
traitorship,  if  we  are  to  become  traitors  to  it, 
cannot  sully. 

And  this  is  the  race,  then,  that  we 
know  not  any  more  how  to  govern  ! and  this 
the  history  which  we  are  to  behold  broken  off 
by  sedition  ! and  this  is  the  country,  of  all 
others,  where  life  is  to  become  difficult  to  the 
honest,  and  ridiculous  to  the  wise  ! And  the 
catastrophe,  forsooth,  is  to  come  just  when  we 
have  been  making  swiftest  progress  beyond 
the  wisdom  and  wealth  of  the  past.  Our 
cities  are  a wilderness  of  spinning  wheels 
instead  of  palaces ; yet  the  people  have  not 
clothes.  We  have  blackened  every  leaf  of 
English  greenwood  with  ashes,  and  the 
people  die  of  cold  ; our  harbors  are  a forest 
of  merchant  ships,  and  the  people  die  of 
hunger. 

Whose  fault  is  it  ? Yours,  gentlemen ; 
yours  only.  You  alone  can  feed  them,  and 

r3 


1 94  THE  crown  of  wild  olive. 

clothe,  and  bring  into  their  right  minds,  for 
you  only  can  govern — that  is  to  say,  you  only 
can  educate  them. 

Educate,  or  govern,  they  are  one  and 
the  same  word.  Education  does  not  mean 
teaching  people  to  know  what  they  do  not 
know.  It  means  teaching  them  to  behave  as 
they  do  not  behave.  And  the  true  “ com- 
pulsory education  ” which  the  people  now  ask 
of  you  is  not  catechism,  but  drill.  It  is  not 
teaching  the  youth  of  England  the  shapes  of 
letters  and  the  tricks  of  numbers ; and  then 
leaving  them  to  turn  their  arithmetic  to  rogu- 
ery, and  their  literature  to  lust.  It  is,  on  the 
contrary,  training  them  into  the  perfect  ex- 
ercise and  kingly  continence  of  their  bodies 
and  souls.  It  is  a painful,  continual,  and 
difficult  work ; to  be  done  by  kindness,  by 
watching,  by  warning,  by  precept,  and  by 
praise, — but  above  all — by  example. 

Compulsory!  Yes,  by  all  means!  “Go 
ye  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges, 
and  compel  them  to  come  in.”  Compulsory  ! 
Yes,  and  gratis  also.  Dei  Gratia , they  must 
be  taught,  as,  Dei  Gratia , you  are  set  to  teach 
them.  I hear  strange  talk  continually,  “how 
difficult  it  is  to  make  people  pay  for  being  edu- 


THE  FUTMRE  OF  ENGLAND . 195 

cated  ! ” Why,  I should  think  so!  Do  you 
make  your  children  pay  for  their  education,  or 
do  you  give  it  them  compulsorily,  and  gratis  ? 
You  do  not  expect  them  to  pay  you  for  their 
teaching,  except  by  becoming  good  children. 
Why  should  you  expect  a peasant  to  pay  for 
his,  except  by  becoming  a good  man  ? — pay- 
ment enough,  I think,  if  we  knew  it.  Pay- 
ment enough  to  himself,  as  to  us.  For  that 
is  another  of  our  grand  popular  mistakes — 
people  are  always  thinking  of  education  as  a 
means  of  livelihood.  Education  is  not  a profit- 
able business,  but  a costly  one ; nay,  even 
the  best  attainments  of  it  are  always  unprofit- 
able, in  any  terms  of  coin.  No  nation  ever 
made  its  bread  either  by  its  great  arts,  or  its 
great  wisdoms.  By  its  minor  arts  or  manu- 
factures, by  its  practical  knowledges,  yes  : but 
its  noble  scholarship,  its  noble  philosophy, 
and  its  noble  art,  are  always  to  be  bought  as 
a treasure,  not  sold  for  a livelihood.  You 
do  not  learn  that  you  may  live — you  live  that 
you  may  learn.  You  are  to  spend  on  Na- 
tional Education,  and  to  be  spent  for  it,  and 
to  make  by  it,  not  more  money,  but  better 
men ; — to  get  into  this  British  Island  the 
greatest  possible  number  of  good  and  brave 


196  the  crown  of  wild  olive. 

Englishmen.  They  are  to  be  your  “ money’s 
worth.” 

But  where  is  the  money  to  come  from? 
Yes,  that  is  to  be  asked.  Let  us,  as  quite  the 
first  business  in  this  our  national  crisis,  look  not 
only  into  our  affairs,  but  into  our  accounts, 
and  obtain  some  general  notion  how  we  an- 
nually spend  our  money,  and  what  we  are  get- 
ting for  it.  Observe,  I do  not  mean  to  inquire 
into  the  public  revenue  only ; of  that  some 
account  is  rendered  already.  But  let  us  do 
the  best  we  can  to  set  down  the  items  of  the 
national  private  expenditure  ; and  know  what 
we  spend  altogether,  and  how. 

To  begin  with  this  matter  of  education. 
You  probably  have  nearly  all  seen  the 
admirable  lecture  lately  given  by  Captain 
Maxse,  at  Southampton.  It  contains  a clear 
statement  of  the  facts  at  present  ascertained 
as  to  our  expenditure  in  that  respect.  It  ap- 
pears that  of  our  public  moneys,  for  every 
pound  that  we  spend  on  education  we  spend 
twelve  either  in  charity  or  punishment ; — ten 
millions  a year  in  pauperism  and  crime,  and 
eight  hundred  thousand  in  instruction.  Now 
Captain  Maxse  adds  to  this  estimate  of  ten 
millions  public  money  spent  on  crime  and 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 197 


want,  a more  or  less  conjectural  sum  of  eight 
millions  for  private  charities.  My  impression 
is  that  this  is  much  beneath  the  truth,  but  at 
all  events  it  leaves  out  of  consideration  much 
the  heaviest  and  saddest  form  of  charity — the 
maintenance,  by  the  working  members  of 
families,  of  the  unfortunate  or  ill-conducted 
persons  whom  the  general  course  of  misrule 
now  leaves  helpless  to  be  the  burden  of  the 
rest. 

Now  I want  to  get  first  at  some,  I do  not 
say  approximate,  but  at  all  events  some 
suggestive,  estimate  of  the  quantity  of  real 
distress  and  misguided  life  in  this  country. 
Then  next,  I want  some  fairly  representative 
estimate  of  our  private  expenditure  in  luxuries. 
We  won’t  spend  more,  publicly,  it  appears, 
than  eight  hundred  thousand  a year,  on  educat- 
ing men,  gratis.  I want  to  know,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  what  we  spend  privately  a year, 
in  educating  horses  gratis.  Let  us,  at  least, 
quit  ourselves  in  this  from  the  taunt  of  Rab- 
shakeh,  and  see  that  for  every  horse  we  train 
also  a horseman  ; and  that  the  rider  be  at 
least  as  high-bred  as  the  horse,  not  jockey, 
but  chevalier.  Again,  we  spend  eight  hun- 
dred thousand,  which  is  certainly  a great  deal 


198  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

of  money,  in  making  rough  minds  bright.  I 
want  to  know  how  much  we  spend  annually  in 
making  rough  stones  bright ; that  is  to  say, 
what  may  be  the  united  annual  sum,  or  near 
it,  of  our  jewellers’  bills.  So  much  we  pay  for 
educating  children  gratis ; — how  much  for 
educating  diamonds  gratis  ? and  which  pays 
best  for  brightening  the  spirit,  or  the  charcoal? 
Let  us  get  those  two  items  set  down  with  some 
sincerity,  and  a few  more  of  the  same  kind. 
Publicly  set  down.  We  must  not  be  ashamed 
of  the  way  we  spend  our  money.  If  our  right 
hand  is  not  to  know  what  our  left  does,  it 
must  not  be  because  it  would  be  ashamed  if  it 
did. 

That  is,  therefore,  quite  the  first  practical 
thing  to  be  done.  Let  every  man  who  wishes 
well  to  his  country,  render  it  yearly  an  account 
of  his  income,  and  of  the  main  heads  of  his 
expenditure  ; or,  if  he  is  ashamed  to  do  so,  let 
him  no  more  impute  to  the  poor  their  poverty 
as  a crime,  nor  set  them  to  break  stones  in 
order  to  frighten  them  from  committing  it. 
To  lose  money  ill  is  indeed  often  a crime  ; but 
to  get  it  ill  is  a worse  one,  and  to  spend  it  ill 
worst  of  all.  You  object,  Lords  of  England, 
to  increase,  to  the  poor,  the  wages  you  give 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 199 


them,  because  they  spend  them,  you  say,  un- 
advisedly. Render  them,  therefore,  an  ac- 
count of  the  wages  which  they  give  you  ; and 
show  them,  by  your  example,  how  to  spend 
theirs,  to  the  last  farthing,  advisedly. 

It  is  indeed  time  to  make  this  an  ac- 
knowledged subject  of  instruction,  to  the 
working-man, — how  to  spend  his  wages.  For, 
gentlemen,  we  must  give  that  instruction, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  one.  way  or  the  other. 
We  have  given  it  in  years  gone  by  ; and  now 
we  find  fault  with  our  peasantry  for  having 
been  too  docile,  and  profited  too  shrewdly  by 
our  tuition.  Only  a few  days  since  I had  a 
letter  from  the  wife  of  a village  rector,  a man 
of  common  sense  and  kindness,  who  was 
greatly  troubled  in  his  mind  because  it  was 
precisely  the  men  who  got  highest  wages  in 
summer  that  came  destitute  to  his  door  in  the 
winter.  Destitute,  and  of  riotous  temper — for 
their  method  of  spending  wages  in  their  period 
of  prosperity  was  by  sitting  two  days  a week 
in  the  tavern  parlor,  ladling  port  wine,  not  out 
of  bowls,  but  out  of  buckets.  Well,  gentle- 
men, who  taught  them  that  method  of  festivity  ? 
Thirty  years  ago,  I,  a most  inexperienced 
freshman,  went  to  my  first  college  supper  ; at 


200  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


the  head  of  the  table  sat  a nobleman  of  high 
promise  and  of  admirable  powers,  since  dead 
of  palsy ; there  also  we  had  in  the  midst  of  us, 
not  buckets,  indeed,  but  bowls  as  large  as 
buckets ; there  also  we  helped  ourselves  with 
ladles.  There  (for  this  beginning  of  college 
education  was  compulsory),  I,  choosing  ladle- 
fuls of  punch  instead  of  claret,  because  I was 
then  able,  unperceived,  to  pour  them  into  my 
waistcoat  instead  of  down  my  throat,  stood  it 
out  to  the  end,  and  helped  to  carry  four  of  my 
fellow  students,  one  of  them  the  son  of  the 
head  of  a college,  head-foremost  downstairs 
and  home. 

Such  things  are  no  more ; but  the  fruit 
of  them  remains,  and  will  for  many  a day 
to  come.  The  laborers  whom  you  cannot  now 
shut  out  of  the  ale-house  are  only  the  too 
faithful  disciples  of  the  gentlemen  who  were 
wont  to  shut  themselves  into  the  dining-room. 
The  gentlemen  have  not  thought  it  necessary, 
in  order  to  correct  their  own  habits,  to  dimin- 
ish their  incomes  ; and,  believe  me,  the  way 
to  deal  with  your  drunken  workman  is  not  to 
lower  his  wages, — but  to  mend  his  wits.* 


* Compare  § 70  of  Time  and  Tide . 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND.  201 

And  if  indeed  we  do  not  yet  see  quite 
clearly  how  to  deal  with  the  sins  of  our  poor 
brother,  it  is  possible  that  our  dimness  of 
sight  may  still  have  other  causes  that  can  be 
cast  out.  There  are  two  opposite  cries  of  the 
great  Liberal  and  Conservative  parties,  which 
are  both  most  right,  and  worthy  to  be  rallying 
cries.  On  their  side,  “ Let  every  man  have 
his  chance  ; ” on  yours,  “ Let  every  man  stand 
in  his  place.”  Yes,  indeed,  let  that  be  so, 
every  man  in  his  place,  and  every  man  fit  for 
it.  See  that  he  holds  that  place  from  Heaven’s 
Providence  ; and  not  from  his  family’s  Provi- 
dence. Let  the  Lords  Spiritual  quit  them- 
selves of  simony,  we  laymen  will  look  after 
the  heretics  for  them.  Let  the  Lords  Tem- 
poral quit  themselves  of  nepotism,  and  we 
will  take  care  of  'their  authority  for  them. 
Publish  for  us,  you  soldiers,  an  army  gazette, 
in  which  the  one  subject  of  daily  intelligence 
shall  be  the  grounds  of  promotion ; a gazette 
which  shall  simply  tell  us,  what  there  certainly 
can  be  no  detriment  to  the  service  in  our  know- 
ing, when  any  officer  is  appointed  to  a new 
command, — what  his  former  services  and  suc- 
cesses have  been, — whom  he  has  superseded, — 
and  on  what  ground.  It  will  be  always  a sat- 


202  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


isfaction  to  us  ; it  may  sometimes  be  an  ad- 
vantage to  you  : and  then,  when  there  is  really 
necessary  debate  respecting  reduction  of 
wages,  let  us  always  begin  not  with  the  wages 
of  the  industrious  classes,  but  with  those  of 
the  idle  ones.  Let  there  be  honorary  titles, 
if  people  like  them  ; but  let  there  be  no  hon- 
orary incomes. 

So  much  for  the  master’s  motto,  “ Every 
man  in  his  place.”  Next  for  the  laborer’s 
motto,  “ Every  man  his  chance.”  Let  us 
mend  that  for  them  a little,  and  say,  “ Every 
man  his  certainty  ” — certainty,  that  if  he  does 
well,  he  will  be  honored,  and  aided,  and  ad- 
vanced in  such  degree  as  may  be  fitting  for 
his  faculty  and  consistent  with  his  peace  ; and 
equal  certainty  that  if  he  does  ill,  he  will  by 
sure  justice  be  judged,  and  by  sure  punish- 
ment be  chastised ; if  it  may  be,  corrected ; 
and  if  that  may  not  be,  condemned.  That  is 
the  right  reading  of  the  Republican  motto, 
“ Every  man  his  chance.”  And  then,  with 
such  a system  of  government,  pure,  watchful, 
and  just,  you  may  approach  your  great  prob- 
lem of  national  education,  or,  in  other  words, 
of  national  employment.  For  all  education 
begins  in  work.  What  we  think,  or  what  we 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 203 

know,  or  what  we  believe,  is  in  the  end  of 
little  consequence.  The  only  thing  of  conse- 
quence is  what  we  do  : and  for  man,  woman  or 
child,  the  first  point  of  education  is  to  make 
them  do  their  best.  It  is  the  law  of  good 
economy  to  make  the  best  of  everything.  How 
much  more  to  make  the  best  of  every  creature  ! 
Therefore,  when  your  pauper  comes  to  you 
and  asks  for  bread,  ask  of  him  instantly — 
What  faculty  have  you  ? What  can  you  do 
best  ? Can  you  drive  a nail  into  wood  ? Go 
and  mend  the  parish  fences.  Can  you  lay  a 
brick  ? Mend  the  walls  of  the  cottages  where 
the  wind  comes  in.  Can  you  lift  a spadeful  of 
earth?  Turn  this  field  up  three  feet  deep  all 
over.  Can  you  only  drag  a weight  with  your 
shoulders  ? Stand  at  the  bottom  of  this  hill 
and  help  up  the  overladen  horses.  Can  you 
weld  iron  and  chisel  stone  ? Fortify  this 
wreck-strewn  coast  into  a harbor ; and  change 
these  shifting  sands  into  fruitful  ground. 
Wherever  death  was,  bring  life ; that  is  to  be 
your  work  ; that  your  parish  refuge  ; that  your 
education.  So  and  no  otherwise  can  we  meet 
existent  distress.  But  for  the  continual  educa- 
tion of  the  whole  people,  and  for  their  future 
happiness,  they  must  have  such  consistent 


204  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


employment,  as  shall  develop  all  the  powers  of 
the  fingers,  and  the  limbs,  and  the  brain  : and 
that  development  in  only  to  be  obtained  by 
hand-labor,  of  which  you  have  these  four  great 
divisions — hand-labor  on  the  earth,  hand-labor 
on  the  sea,  hand-labor  in  art,  hand-labor  in  war. 
Of  the  last  two  of  these  I cannot  speak  to-night, 
and  of  the  first  two  only  with  extreme  brevity. 

I.  Hand-labor  on  the  earth,  the  work  of 
the  husbandman  and  of  the  shepherd  ; — to 
dress  the  earth  and  to  keep  the  flocks  of  it — 
the  first  task  of  man,  and  the  final  one — the 
education  always  of  noblest  lawgivers,  kings 
and  teachers  ; the  education  of  Hesiod,  of 
Moses,  of  David,  of  all  the  true  strength  of 
Rome ; and  all  its  tenderness  : the  pride  of 
Cincinnatus  and  the  inspiration  of  Virgil. 
Hand-labor  on  the  earth,  and  the  harvest  of  it 
brought  forth  with  singing  : — not  steam-piston 
labor  on  the  earth,  and  the  harvest  of  it  brought 
forth  with  steam- whistling.  You  will  have  no 
prophet’s  voice  accompanied  by  that  shep- 
herd’s pipe,  and  pastoral  symphony.  Do 
you  know  that  lately,  in  Cumberland,  in  the 
chief  pastoral  district  of  England, — in  Words- 
worth’s own  home, — a procession  of  villagers 
on  their  festa  day  provided  for  themselves,  by 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND.  205 

way  of  music,  a steam-plough  whistling  at  the 
head  of  them  ! 

Give  me  patience  while  I put  the  prin- 
ciple of  machine  labor  before  you,  as  clearly 
and  in  as  short  compass  as  possible ; it  is 
one  that  should  be  known  at  this  junct- 
ure. Suppose  a farming  proprietor  needs  to 
employ  a hundred  men  on  his  estate,  and  that 
the  labor  of  these  hundred  men  is  enough,  but 
not  more  than  enough,  to  till  all  his  land,  and 
to  raise  from  it  food  for  his  own  family,  and 
for  the  hundred  laborers.  He  is  obliged,  un- 
der such  circumstances,  to  maintain  all  the 
men  in  moderate  comfort,  and  can  only  by 
economy  accumulate  much  for  himself.  But, 
suppose  he  contrive  a machine  that  will  easily 
do  the  work  of  fifty  men,  with  only  one  man 
to  watch  it.  This  sounds  like  a great  advance 
in  civilization.  The  farmer  of  course  gets  his 
machine  made,  turns  off  the  fifty  men  who 
may  starve  or  emigrate  at  their  choice,  and 
now  he  can  keep  half  of  the  produce  of  his 
estate,  which  formerly  went  to  feed  them,  all  to 
himself.  That  is  the  essential  and  constant 
operation  of  machinery  among  us  at  this  mo- 
ment. 

Nay,  it  is  at  first  answered ; no  man  can 


206  the  crown  of  wild  olive . 


in  reality  keep  half  the  produce  of  an  estate 
to  himself,  nor  can  he  in  the  end  keep 
more  than  his  own  human  share  of  anything ; 
his  riches  must  diffuse  themselves  at  some 
time ; he  must  maintain  somebody  else  with 
them,  however  he  spends  them.  That  is 
mainly  true  (not  altogether  so),  for  food  and 
fuel  are  in  ordinary  circumstances  personally 
wasted  by  rich  people,  in  quantities  which 
would  save  many  lives.  One  of  my  own  great 
luxuries,  for  instance,  is  candlelight — and  I 
probably  burn,  for  myself  alone,  as  many  cam 
dies  during  the  winter,  as  would  comfort  the  old 
eyes,  or  spare  the  young  ones,  of  a whole 
rushlighted  country  village.  Still,  it  is  mainly 
true  that  it  is  not  by  their  personal  waste  that 
rich  people  prevent  the  lives  of  the  poor.  This 
is  the  way  they  do  it.  Let  me  go  back  to  my 
farmer.  He  has  got  his  machine  made,  which 
goes  creaking,  screaming,  and  occasionally  ex- 
ploding, about  modern  Arcadia.  He  has  turned 
off  his  fifty  men  to  starve.  Now,  at  some 
distance  from  his  own  farm,  there  is  another 
on  which  the  laborers  were  working  for  then 
bread  in  the  same  way,  by  tilling  the  land. 
The  machinist  sends  over  to  these,  saying — “ I 
have  got  food  enough  for  you  without  your 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND.  207 


digging  or  ploughing  any  more.  I can  main- 
tain you  in  other  occupations  instead  of  plough- 
ing that  land  ; if  you  rake  in  its  gravel  you  will 
find  some  hard  stones — you  shall  grind  those 
on  mills  till  they  glitter  ; then,  my  wife  shall 
wear  a necklace  of  them.  Also,  if  you  turn  up 
the  meadows  below  you  will  find  some  fine  white 
clay,  of  which  you  shall  make  a porcelain  service 
for  me  : and  the  rest  of  the  farm  I want  for 
pasture  for  horses  for  my  carriage — and  you 
shall  groom  them,  and  some  of  you  ride  behind 
the  carriage  with  staves  in  your  hands,  and  I 
will  keep  you  much  fatter  for  doing  that  than 
you  can  keep  yourselves  by  digging.” 

Well — but  it  is  answered,  are  we  to  have 
no  diamonds,  nor  china,  nor  pictures,  nor 
footmen,  then — but  all  to  be  farmers  ? I 
am  not  saying  what  we  ought  to  do,  I want 
only  to  show  you  with  perfect  clearness  first 
what  we  are  doing ; and  that,  I repeat,  is  the 
upshot  of  machine-contriving  in  this  country. 
And  observe  its  effect  on  the  national  strength. 
Without  machines,  you  have  a hundred  and 
fifty  yeomen  ready  to  join  for  defence  of 
the  land.  You  get  your  machine,  starve  fifty 
of  them,  make  diamond-cutters  or  footmen  of 
as  many  more,  and  for  your  national  defence 


208  the  crown  of  wild  olive. 


against  an  enemy,  you  have  now,  and  <:<z/zhave, 
only  fifty  men,  instead  of  a hundred  and  fifty ; 
these  also  now  with  minds  much  alienated 
from  you  as  their  chief,*  and  the  rest,  lapidaries 
or  footmen  ; — and  a steam  plough. 

That  is  the  one  effect  of  machinery ; but 
at  all  events,  if  we  have  thus  lost  in  men,  we 
have  gained  in  riches  ; instead  of  happy  human 
souls,  we  have  at  least  got  pictures,  china, 
horses,  and  are  ourselves  better  off  than  we 
were  before.  But  very  often,  and  in  much  of 
our  machine-contriving,  even  that  result  does 
not  follow.  We  are  not  one  whit  the  richer 
for  the  machine,  we  only  employ  it  for  our 
amusement.  For  observe,  our  gaining  in  riches 
depends  on  the  men  who  are  out  of  employment 
consenting  to  be  starved,  or  sent  out  of  the 
country.  But  suppose  they  do  not  consent 
passively  to  be  starved,  but  some  of  them  be- 
come criminals,  and  have  to  be  taken  charge 
of  and  fed  at  a much  greater  cost  than  if  they 
were  at  work,  and  others,  paupers,  rioters,  and 
the  like,  then  you  attain  the  real  outcome  of 
modern  wisdom  and  ingenuity.  You  had  your 
hundred  men  honestly  at  country  work  ; but 

* [They  were  deserting,  I am  informed,  in  the  early 
part  of  this  year,  1873,  at  the  rate  of  a regiment  a week.] 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 


209 


you  don’t  like  the  sight  of  human  beings  in 
your  fields  ; you  like  better  to  see  a smoking 
kettle.  You  pay,  as  an  amateur,  for  that 
pleasure,  and  you  employ  your  fifty  men  in 
picking  oakum,  or  begging,  rioting,  and  thiev- 
ing. 

By  hand-labor,  therefore,  and  that  alone, 
we  are  to  till  the  ground.  By  hand-labor 
also  to  plough  the  sea ; both  for  food, 
and  in  commerce,  and  in  war ; not  with  float- 
ing kettles  there  neither,  but  with  hempen 
bridle,  and  the  winds  of  heaven  in  harness. 
That  is  the  way  the  power  of  Greece  rose  on 
her  Egean,  the  power  of  Venice  on  her  Adria, 
of  Amalfi  in  her  blue  bay,  of  the  Norman  sea- 
riders  from  the  North  Cape  to  Sicily  so, 
your  own  dominion  also  of  the  past.  Of  the 
past,  mind  you.  On  the  Baltic  and  the  Nile, 
your  power  is  already  departed.  By  ma- 
chinery you  would  advance  to  discovery  ; by 
machinery  you  would  carry  your  commerce  ; — 
you  would  be  engineers  instead  of  sailors  ; 
and  instantly  in  the  North  seas  you  are  beaten 
among  the  ice,  and  before  the  very  Gods  of 
Nile,  beaten  among  the  sand.  Agriculture, 
then,  by  the  hand  or  by  the  plough  drawn 
only  by  animals ; and  shepherd  and  pastoral 
14 


2io  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE, 


husbandry,  are  to  be  the  chief  schools  of 
Englishmen.  And  this  most  royal  academy  of 
all  academies  you  have  to  open  over  all  the 
land,  purifying  your  heaths  and  hills,  and 
waters,  and  keeping  them  full  of  every  kind  of 
lovely  natural  organism,  in  tree,  herb,  and  living 
creature.  All  land  that  is  waste  and  ugly,  you 
must  redeem  into  ordered  fruitfulness  ; all  ruin, 
desolateness,  imperfectness  of  hut  or  habita- 
tion, you  must  do  away  with  ; and  throughout 
every  village  and  city  of  your  English  dominion, 
there  must  not  be  a hand  that  cannot  find  a 
* helper,  nor  a heart  that  cannot  find  a com- 
forter. 

“ How  impossible ! ” I know,  you  are 
thinking.  Ah  ! So  far  from  impossible,  it  is 
easy,  it  is  natural,  it  is  necessary,  and  I de- 
clare to  you  that,  sooner  or  later,  it  must  be 
done , at  our  peril.  If  now  our  English  lords 
of  land  will  fix  this  idea  steadily  before 
them  ; take  the  people  to  their  hearts,  trust 
to  their  loyalty,  lead  their  labor ; — then 
indeed  there  will  be  princes  again  in  the 
midst  of  us,  worthy  of  the  island  throne, 

“ This  royal  throne  of  kings — this  sceptred  isle— 
This  fortress  built  by  nature  for  herself. 

Against  infection,  and  the  hand  of  war  ; 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND . 


211 


This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea ; 

This  happy  breed  of  men — this  little  world ; 

This  other  Eden— Demi-Paradise.” 

But  if  they  refuse  to  do  this,  and  hesitate  and 
equivocate,  clutching  through  the  confused 
catastrophe  of  all  things  only  at  what  they  can 
still  keep  stealthily  for  themselves, — their 
doom  is  nearer  than  even  their  adversaries 
hope,  and  it  will  be  deeper  than  even  their 
despisers  dream. 

That,  believe  me,  is  the  work  you  have  to 
do  in  England ; and  out  of  England  you  have 
room  for  everything  else  you  care  to  do.  Are 
her  dominions  in  the  world  so  narrow  that 
she  can  find  no  place  to  spin  cotton  in  but 
Yorkshire  ? We  may  organize  emigration  into 
an  infinite  power.  We  may  assemble  troops 
of  the  more  adventurous  and  ambitious  of  our 
youth ; we  may  send  them  on  truest  foreign 
service,  founding  new  seats  of  authority,  and 
centres  of  thought,  in  uncultivated  and  un- 
conquered lands  ; retaining  the  full  affection 
to  the  native  country  no  less  in  our  colonists 
than  in  our  armies,  teaching  them  to  maintain 
allegiance  to  their  fatherland  in  labor  no  less 
than  in  battle ; aiding  them  with  free  hand  in 
the  prosecution  of  discovery,  and  the  victory 


212 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


over  adverse  natural  powers ; establishing 
seats  of  every  manufacture  in  the  climates  and 
places  best  fitted  for  it,  and  bringing  ourselves 
into  due  alliance  and  harmony  of  skill  with 
the  dexterities  of  every  race,  and  the  wisdoms 
of  every  tradition  and  every  tongue. 

And  then  you  may  make  England  itself  the 
centre  of  the  learning,  of  the  arts,  of  the  court- 
esies and  felicities  of  the  world.  Y ou  may  cover 
her  mountains  with  pasture ; her  plains  with 
corn,  her  valleys  with  the  lily,  and  her  gardens 
with  the  rose.  You  may  bring  together  there 
in  peace  the  wise  and  the  pure,  and  the  gentle 
of  the  earth,  and  by  their  word,  command 
through  its  farthest  darkness  the  birth  of 
“ God’s  first  creature,  which  was  Light.”  You 
know  whose  words  those  are ; the  words  of 
the  wisest  of  Englishmen.  He,  and  with  him 
the  wisest  of  all  other  great  nations,  have 
spoken  always  to  men  of  this  hope,  and  they 
would  not  hear.  Plato,  in  the  dialogue  of 
Critias,  his  last,  broken  off  at  his  death, — 
Pindar,  in  passionate  singing  of  the  fortunate 
islands, — Virgil,  in  the  prophetic  tenth  eclogue, 
— Bacon,  in  his  fable  of  the  New  Atlantis, — 
More,  in  the  book  which,  too  impatiently  wise, 
became  the  bye-word  of  fools — these,  all,  have 


THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND.  213 


told  us  with  one  voice  what  we  should  strive 
to  attain  ; they  not  hopeless  of  it,  but  for  our 
follies  forced,  as  it  seems,  by  heaven,  to  tell  us 
only  partly  and  in  parables,  lest  we  should  hear 
them  and  obey. 

Shall  we  never  listen  to  the  words  of  these 
wisest  of  men?  Then  listen  at  least  to  the 
words  of  your  children — let  us  in  the  lips  of 
babes  and  sucklings  find  our  strength  ; and 
see  that  we  do  not  make  them  mock  instead 
of  pray,  when  we  teach  them,  night  and  morn- 
ing, to  ask  for  what  we  believe  never  can  be 
granted  ; — that  the  will  of  the  Father, — which 
is,  that  His  creatures  may  be  righteous  and 
happy, — should  be  done,  on  earth , as  it  is  in 
Heaven. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX. 


NOTES  ON  THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  PRUSSIA. 

I am  often  accused  of  inconsistency ; but 
believe  myself  defensible  against  the  charge 
with  respect  to  what  I have  said  on  nearly 
every  subject  except  that  of  war.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  me  to  write  consistently  of  war,  for 
the  groups  of  facts  I have  gathered  about  it 
lead  me  to  two  precisely  opposite  conclusions. 

When  I find  this  the  case,  in  other  matters, 
I am  silent,  till  I can  choose  my  conclusion  : 
but,  with  respect  to  war,  I am  forced  to  speak, 
by  the  necessities  of  time  ; and  forced  to  act, 
one  way  or  another.  The  conviction  on  which 
I act  is  that  it  causes  an  incalculable  amount 
of  avoidable  human  suffering,  and  that  it 
ought  to  cease  among  Christian  nations ; and 
if  therefore  any  of  my  boy-friends  desire  to  be 
soldiers,  I try  my  utmost  to  bring  them  into 
what  I conceive  to  be  a better  mind.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  I know  certainly  that  the  most 
beautiful  characters  yet  developed  among 
men  have  been  formed  in  war ; — that  all  great 
nations  have  been  warrior  nations,  and  that 

217 


2 18  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


the  only  kinds  of  peace  which  we  are  likely  to 
get  in  the  present  age  are  ruinous  alike  to  the 
intellect,  and  the  heart. 

The  third  lecture,  in  this  volume,  addressed 
to  young  soldiers,  had  for  its  subject  to 
strengthen  their  trust  in  the  virtue  of  their 
profession.  It  is  inconsistent  with  itself,  in 
its  closing  appeal  to  women,  praying  them  to 
use  their  influence  to  bring  wars  to  an  end. 
And  I have  been  hindered  from  completing 
my  long  intended  notes  on  the  economy  of 
the  Kings  of  Prussia  by  continually  increas- 
ing doubt  how  far  the  machinery  and  disci- 
pline of  war,  under  which  they  learned  the  art 
of  government,  was  essential  for  such  lesson  ; 
and  what  the  honesty  and  sagacity  of  the 
Friedrich  who  so  nobly  repaired  his  ruined 
Prussia  might  have  done  for  the  happiness  of 
his  Prussia,  unruined. 

In  war,  however,  or  in  peace,  the  character 
which  Carlyle  chiefly  loves  him  for,  and  in 
which  Carlyle  has  shown  him  to  differ  from 
all  kings  up  to  this  time  succeeding  him,  is 
his  constant,  purpose  to  use  every  power  in- 
trusted to  him  for  the  good  of  his  people  ; and 
be,  not  in  name  only,  but  in  heart  and  hand, 
their  king. 

Not  in  ambition,  but  in  natural  instinct  of 
duty.  Friedrich,  born  to  govern,  determines 
to  govern  to  the  best  of  his  faculty.  That 
“ best  ” may  sometimes  be  unwise  ; and  self- 
will,  or  love  of  glory,  may  have  their  oblique 
hold  on  his  mind,  and  warp  it  this  way  or  that ; 


APPENDIX . 


219 


but  they  are  never  principal  with  him.  He 
believes  that  war  is  necessary,  and  maintains 
it ; sees  that  peace  is  necessary,  and  calmly 
persists  in  the  work  of  it  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  not  claiming  therein  more  praise  than 
the  head  of  any  ordinary  household,  who  rules 
it  simply  because  it  is  his  place,  and  he  must 
not  yield  the  mastery  of  it  to  another. 

How  far,  in  the  future,  it  may  be  possible 
for  men  to  gain  the  strength  necessary  for 
kingship  without  either  fronting  death,  or  in- 
flicting it,  seems  to  me  not  at  present  deter- 
minable. The  historical  facts  are  that,  broadly 
speaking,  none  but  soldiers,  or  persons  with  a 
soldierly  faculty,  have  ever  yet  shown  them- 
selves fit  to  be  kings  ; and  that  no  other  men 
are  so  gentle,  so  just,  or  so  clear-sighted. 
Wordsworth’s  character  of  the  happy  warriot 
cannot  be  reached  in  the  height  of  it  but  by  a 
warrior ; nay,  so  much  is  it  beyond  common 
strength  that  I had  supposed  the  entire  mean- 
ing of  it  to  be  metaphorical,  until  one  of  the 
best  soldiers  of  England  himself  read  me  the 
poem,*  and  taught  me,  what  I might  have 
known,  had  I enough  watched  his  own  life, 
that  it  was  entirely  literal.  There  is  nothing 
of  so  high  reach  distinctly  demonstrable  in 
Friedrich  : but  I see  more  and  more,  as  I grow 
older,  that  the  things  which  are  the  most 
worth,  encumbered  among  the  errors  and 
faults  of  every  man’s  nature,  are  never  clearly 


* The  late  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes. 


220  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 


demonstrable ; and  are  often  most  forcible 
when  they  are  scarcely  distinct  to  his  own 
conscience, — how  much  less,  clamorous  for 
recognition  by  others ! 

Nothing  can  be  more  beautiful  than  Carlyle’s 
showing  of  this,  to  any  careful  reader  of  Fried- 
rich. But  careful  readers  are  but  one  in  the 
thousand  ; and  by  the  careless,  the  masses  of 
detail  with  which  the  historian  must  deal  are 
insurmountable. 

My  own  notes,  made  for  the  special  purpose 
of  hunting  down  the  one  point  of  economy, 
though  they  cruelly  spoil  Carlyle’s  own  cur- 
rent and  method  of  thought,  may  yet  be  use- 
ful in  enabling  readers,  unaccustomed  to 
books  involving  so  vast  a range  of  conception, 
to  discern  what,  on  this  one  subject  only,  may 
be  gathered  from  that  history.  On  any  other 
subject  of  importance,  similar  gatherings 
might  be  made  of  other  passages.  The  his- 
torian has  to  deal  with  all  at  once. 

I therefore  have  determined  to  print  here, 
as  a sequel  to  the  Essay  on  War,  my  notes 
from  the  first  volume  of  Friedrich,  on  the 
economies  of  Brandenburg,  up  to  the  date  of 
the  establishment  of  the  Prussian  monarchy. 
The  economies  of  the  first  three  Kings  of 
Prussia  I shall  then  take  up  in  Fors  Clavigera , 
finding  them  fitter  for  examination  in  connec- 
tion with  the  subject  of  that  book  than  of 
this. 

I assume,  that  the  reader  will  take  down  his 
first  volume  of  Carlyle,  and  read  attentively 


APPENDIX. 


221 


the  passages  to  which  I refer  him.  I give  the 
reference  first  to  the  largest  edition,  in  six 
volumes  (1858-1865)  ; then,  in  parenthesis,  to 
the  smallest  or  “people’s  edition”  (1872- 
1873).  The  pieces  which  I have  quoted  in 
my  own  text  are  for  the  use  of  readers  who 
may  not  have  ready  access  to  the  book ; and 
are  enough  for  the  explanation  of  the  points 
to  which  I wish  them  to  direct  their  thoughts 
in  reading  such  histories  of  soldiers  or  soldier- 
kingdoms. 

I. 

Year  928  to  936. — Dawn  of  Order  in  Christian  Ger- 
many. 

Book  II.  Chap.  i.  p.  67  (47). 

Henry  the  Fowler,  “ the  beginning  of 
German  kings,”  is  a mighty  soldier  in  the. 
cause  of  peace  ; his  essential  work  the  building 
and  organization  of  fortified  towns  for  the  pro- 
tection of  men. 

Read  page  72  with  utmost  care  (51),  “ He 
fortified  towns  ” to  end  of  small  print.  I have 
added  some  notes  on  the  matter  in  my  lecture 
on  Giovanni  Pisano  ; but  whether  you  can 
glance  at  them  or  not,  fix  in  your  mind  this 
institution  of  truly  civil  or  civic  building  in 
Germany,  as  distinct  from  the  building  of 
baronial  castles  for  the  security  of  robbers : 
and  of  a standing  army  consisting  of  every 
ninth  man,  called  a “ burgher  ” (“  townsman  ”) 


222  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


• — a soldier  appointed  to  learn  that  profession 
that  he  may  guard  the  walls — the  exact  reverse 
of  our  notion  of  a burgher. 

Frederick’s  final  idea  of  his  army  is,  indeed, 
only  this. 

Brannibor,  a chief  fortress  of  the  Wends, 
is  thus  taken,  and  further  strengthened  by 
Henry  the  Fowler;  wardens  appointed  for  it; 
and  thus  the  history  of  Brandenburg  begins. 
On  all  frontiers,  also,  this  44  beginning  of 
German  kings  ” has  his  44  Markgraf,”  44  Ancient 
of  the  marked  place.”  Read  page  73, 
measuredly,  learning  it  by  heart,  if  it  may  be. 


936 — 1000. — History  of  Nascent  Brandenburg. 

The  passage  I last  desired  you  to  read  ends 
with  this  sentence  : 44  The  sea-wall  you  build, 
and  what  main  floodgates  you  establish  in  it, 
will  depend  on  the  state  of  the  outer  sea.” 
From  this  time  forward  you  have  to  keep 
clearly  separate  in  your  minds,  (a)  the  history 
of  that  outer  sea,  Pagan  Scandinavia,  Russia, 
and  Bor-Russia,  or  Prussia  proper;  (b)  the 
history  of  Henry  the  Fowler’s  Eastern  and 
Western  Marches;  asserting  themselves  grad- 
ually as  Austria  and  the  Netherlands  ; and 
(c)  the  history  of  this  inconsiderable  fortress 
of  Brandenburg,  gradually  becoming  consider- 
able, and  the  capital  city  of  increasing  district 
between  them.  That  last  history,  however. 


APPENDIX. 


223 


Carlyle  is  obliged  to  leave  vague  and  gray 
for  two  hundred  years  after  Henry’s  death. 
Absolutely  dim  for  the  first  century,  in  which 
nothing  is  evident  but  that  its  wardens  or 
Markgraves  had  no  peaceable  possession  of 
the  place.  Read  the  second  paragraph  in 
page  74  (52-3),  “in  old  books”  to  “reader,” 
and  the  first  in  page  83  (59),  “ meanwhile  ” to 
“ substantial,”  consecutively.  They  bring  the 
story  of  Brandenburg  itself  down,  at  any  rate, 
from  936  to  1000. 

III. 

936 — 1000. — State  of  the  Outer  Sea . 

Read  now  Chapter  II.  beginning  at  page 
76  (54),  wherein  you  will  get  account  of  the 
beginning  of  vigorous  missionary  work  on  the 
outer  sea,  in  Prussia  proper ; of  the  death  of 
St.  Adalbert,  and  of  the  purchase  of  his  dead 
body  by  the  Duke  of  Poland. 

You  will  not  easily  understand  Carlyle’s 
laugh  in  this  chapter,  unless  you  have  learned 
yourself  to  laugh  in  sadness,  and  to  laugh  in 
love. 

“ No  Czech  blows  his  pipe  in  the  woodlands 
without  certain  precautions  and  preliminary 
fuglings  of  a devotional  nature.”  (Imagine 
St.  Adalbert,  in  spirit,  at  the  railway  station 
in  Birmingham !) 

My  own  main  point  for  notice  in  the  chapter 
is  the  purchase  of  his  body  for  its  “ weight  in 
gold.”  Swindling  angels  held  it  up  in  the 


224  THE  crown  of  wild  olive . 

scales ; it  did  not  weigh  so  much  as  a web  of 
gossamer.  “ Had  such  excellent  odor,  too, 
and  came  for  a mere  nothing  of  gold, 55  says 
Carlyle.  It  is  one  of  the  first  commercial 
transactions  of  Germany,  but  I regret  the  con- 
duct of  the  angels  on  the  occasion.  Evangeli- 
calism has  been  proud  of  ceasing  to  invest  in 
relics,  its  swindling  angels  helping  it  to  better 
things,  as  it  supposes.  For  my  own  part,  I 
believe  Christian  Germany  could  not  have 
bought  at  this  time  any  treasure  more  pre- 
cious ; nevertheless,  the  missionary  work  it- 
self you  find  is  wholly  vain.  The  difference 
of  opinion  between  St.  Adalbert  and  the 
Wends,  on  Divine  matters,  does  not  signify  to 
the  Fates.  They  will  not  have  it  disputed 
about ; and  end  the  dispute  adversely,  to  St. 
Adalbert, — adversely,  even,  to  Brandenburg 
and  its  civilizing  power,  as  you  will  imme- 
diately see. 

IV. 

IOOO — 1030. — History  of  Bra?idenburg  in  Trouble . 

Book  II.  Chap.  iii‘.  p.  83  (59). 

The  adventures  of  Brandenburg  in  contest 
with  Pagan  Prussia,  irritated,  rather  than 
amended,  by  St,  Adalbert.  In  1023,  roughly, 
a hundred  years  after  Henry  the  Fowler’s 
death,  Brandenburg  is  taken  by  the  Wends, 
and  its  first  line  of  Markgraves  ended;  its 
population  mostly  butchered,  especially  the 


APPENDIX. 


225 


priests;  and  the  Wends*  God,  Triglaph, 
“ something  like  three  whales*  cubs  combined 
by  boiling,”  set  up  on  the  top  of  St*  Mary’s 
Hill. 

Here  is  an  adverse  “ Doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  ” which  has  its  supporters ! It  is 
wonderful, — this  Tripod  and  Triglyph, — three- 
footed, three-cut  faith  of  the  North  and  South, 
the  leaf  of  the  oxalis,  and  strawberry,  and 
clover,  fostering  the  same  in  their  simple 
manner.  I suppose  it  to  be  the  most  savage 
and  natural  of  notions  about  Deity  ; a prismatic 
idol-shape  of  Him,  rude  as  a triangular  log,  as 
a trefoil  grass.  I do  not  find  how  long 
Triglaph  held  his  state  on  St.  Mary’s  Hill. 
“ For  a time,’*  says  Carlyle,  “ the  priests  all 
slain  or  fled, — shadowy  Markgraves  the  like 
- — church  and  state  lay  in  ashes,  and  Tnglaph, 
like  a triple  porpoise  under  the  influence  of 
laudanum,  stood,  I know  not  whether  on  his 
head  or  his  tail,  aloft  on  the  Harlungsberg,  as 
the  Supreme  of  this  Universe  for  the  time 
being.” 

V. 

1030 — 1130. — Brandenburg  under  the  Dit - 
marsch  Markgraves , or  Di tmarsch- Stade 
Markgraves . 

Book  II.  Chap.  iii.  p.  85  (60). 

Of  Anglish,  or  Saxon  breed.  They  attack 
Brandenburg,  under  its  Triglyphic  protector, 

15 


226  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

take  it — dethrone  him,  and  hold  the  town  for 
a hundred  years,  their  history  “ stamped  bene- 
ficially on  the  face  of  things,  Markgraf  after 
Markgraf  getting  killed  in  the  business. 

‘ Erschlagen,’  6 slain,’  fighting  with  the  Hea- 
then— say  the  old  books,  and  pass  on  to 
another.”  If  we  allow  seven  years  to  Triglaph 
— we  get  a clear  century  for  these — as  above 
indicated.  They  die  out  in  1130. 


VI. 

1130 — 1170. — Brandenburg  under  Albert  the 
Bear. 

Book  II.  Chap.  iv.  p.  91  (64). 

He  is  the  first  of  the  Ascanien  Markgraves, 
whose  castle  of  Ascanica  is  on  the  northern 
slope  of  the  Hartz  Mountains,  “ruins  still 
dimly  traceable.” 

There  had  been  no  soldier  or  king  of  note 
among  the  Ditmarsch  Markgraves,  so  that 
you  will  do  well  to  fix  in  your  mind  succes- 
sively the  three  men,  Henry  the  Fowler,  St. 
Adalbert,  and  Albert  the  Bear.  A soldier 
again,  and  a strong  one.  Named  the  Bear 
only  from  the  device  on  his  shield,  first  wholly 
definite  Markgraf  of  Brandenburg  that  there 
is,  “ and  that  the  luckiest  of  events  for  Brand- 
enburg.” Read  page  93  (66)  carefully,  and 
note  this  of  his  economies. 


APPENDIX. 


227 


“ Nothing  better  is  known  to  me  of  Albert 
the  Bear  than  his  introducing  large  numbers 
of  Dutch  Netherlander  into  those  countries ; 
men  thrown  out  of  work,  who  already  knew 
how  to  deal  with  bog  and  sand,  by  mixing  and 
delving,  and  who  first  taught  Brandenburg 
what  greenness  and  cow-pasture  was.  The 
Wends,  in  presence  of  such'  things,  could  not 
but  consent  more  and  more  to  efface  them- 
selves— either  to  become  German,  and  grow 
milk  and  cheese  in  the  Dutch  manner,  or  to 
disappear  from  the  world. 

“ After  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  bark- 
ing and  worrying,  the  Wends  are  now  finally 
reduced  to  silence  ; their  anarchy  well  buried 
and  wholesome  Dutch  cabbage  planted  over 
it ; Albert  did  several  great  things  in  the  world ; 
but  this,  for  posterity,  remains  his  memorable 
feat.  Not  done  quite  easily,  but  done  : big 
destinies  of  nations  or  of  persons  are  not 
founded  gratis  in  this  world;  He  had  a sore, 
toilsome  time  of  it,  coercing,  warring,  manag- 
ing among  his  fellow-creatures,  while  his  day’s 
work  lasted — fifty  years  or  so,  for  it  began 
early.  He  died  in  his  Castle  of  Ballenstadt, 
peaceably  among  the  Hartz  Mountains  at  last, 
in  the  year  1170,  age  about  sixty-five.” 

Now,  note  in  all  this  the  steady  gain  of 
soldiership  enforcing  order  and  agriculture, 
with  St.  Adalbert  giving  higher  strain  to  the 
imagination.  Henry  the  Fowler  establishes 


228  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


walled  towns,  fighting  for  mere  peace.  Albert 
the  Bear  plants  the  country  with  cabbages, 
fighting  for  his  cabbage-fields.  And  the  dis- 
ciples of  St.  Adalbert,  generally,  have  suc- 
ceeded in  substituting  some  idea  of  Christ  for 
the  idea  of  Triglaph.  Some  idea  only ; other 
ideas  than  of  Christ  haunt  even  to  this  day 
those  Hartz  Mountains  among  which  Albert 
the  Bear  died  so  peacefully.  Mephistopheles, 
and  all  his  ministers,  inhabit  there,  command- 
ing mephitic  clouds  and  earth-born  dreams. 


VII. 

1170 — 1320. — Brandenburg  lyo  years  under 
the  Ascanien  Markgraves. 

Vol.  I.  Book  II.  Chap.  viii.  p.  135  (96). 

“Wholesome  Dutch  cabbages  continued  to 
be  more  and  more  planted  by  them  in  the 
waste  sand : intrusive  chaos,  and  Triglaph 
held  at  bay  by  them,”  till  at  last  in  1240, 
seventy  years  after  the  great  Bear’s  death,  they 
fortify  a new  Burg,  a “ little  rampart,”  Wehrlin, 
diminutive  of  Wehr  (or  vallum),  gradually 
smoothing  itself,  with  a little  echo  of  the  Bear 
in  it  too,  into  Ber-lin,  the  oily  river  Spree  flow- 
ing by,  “ in  which  you  catch  various  fish  ; ” 
while  trade  over  the  flats  and  by  the  dull 
streams,  is  widely  possible.  Of  the  Ascanien 
race,  the  notablest  is  Otto  with  the  Arw'V, 


APPENDIX . 


229 


whose  story  see,  pp.  138-141  (98-109),  noting 
that  Otto  is  one  of  the  first  Minnesingers ; 
that,  being  a prisoner  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Magdeburg,  his  wife  rescues  him,  selling  her 
jewels  to  bribe  the  canons ; and  that  the 
Knight,  set  free  on  parole  and  promise  of  fur- 
ther ransom,  rides  back  with  his  own  price  in 
his  hand ; holding  himself  thereat  cheaply 
bought,  though  no  angelic  legerdemain  hap- 
pens to  the  scales  now.  His  own  estimate  of 
his  price — “ Rain  gold  ducats  on  my  war-horse 
and  me,  till  you  cannot  see  the  point  of  my 
spear  atop.” 

Emptiness  of  utter  pride,  you  think  ? . 

Not  so.  Consider  with  yourself,  reader, 
how  much  you  dare  to  say,  aloud,  you  are 
worth.  If  you  have  no  courage  to  name  any 
price  whatsoever  for  yourself,  believe  me,  the 
cause  is  not  your  modesty,  but  that  in  very 
truth  you  feel  in  your  heart  there  would  be  no 
bid  for  you  at  Lucian’s  sale  of  lives,  were  that 
again  possible,  at  Christie  and  Manson’s. 

Finally  (1319  exactly ; say  1320,  for  memory), 
the  Ascanien  line  expired  in  Brandenburg,  and 
the  little  town  and  its  electorate  lapsed  to  the 
Kaiser  : meantime  other  economical  arrange- 
ments had  been  in  progress ; but  observe  first 
how  far  we  have  got. 

The  Fowler,  St.  Adalbert,  and  the  Bear  have 
established  order,  and  some  sort  of  Chris- 
tianity ; but  the  established  persons  begin  to 
think  somewhat  too  well  of  themselves.  On 
quite  honest  terms,  a dead  saint  or  a living 


2$0  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


knight  ought  to  be  worth  their  true  “ weight 
in  gold.”  But  a pyramid,  with  only  the  point 
of  the  spear  seen  at  top,  would  be  many  times 
over  one’s  weight  m gold.  And  although  men 
were  yet  far  enough  from  the  notion  of  modern 
days,  that  the  gold  is  better  than  the  flesh, 
and  from  buying  it  with  the  clay  of  one’s  body, 
and  even  the  fire  of  one’s  soul,  instead  of  soul 
and  body  with  it,  they  were  beginning  to  fight 
for  their  own  supremacy,  or  for  their  own 
religious  fancies,  and  not  at  all  to  any  useful 
end,  until  an  entirely  unexpected  movement  is 
made  in  the  old  useful  direction  forsooth,  only 
by  some  kind  ship-captains  of  Lubeck  ! 


VIII. 

1210  — 1320 . — Civil  work , aidi ng  ?nilitary , 
during  the  Ascanien  period 

Vol.  I.  Book  II.  Chap.  vi.  p.  109  (77). 

In  the  year  1190,  Acre  not  yet  taken,  and 
the  crusading  army  wasting  by  murrain  on  the 
shore,  the  German  soldiers  especially  having 
none  to  look  after  them,  certain  compassionate 
ship-captains  of  Lubeck,  one  Walpot  von  Bas- 
senheim  taking  the  lead,  formed  themselves 
into  an  union  for  succor  of  the  sick  and  the 
dying,  set  up  canvas  tents  from  the  Lubeck 
ship  stores,  and  did  what  utmost  was  in  them 


APPENDIX . 


231 


silently  in  the  name  of  mercy  and  heaven. 
Finding  its  work  prosper,  the  little  medicinal 
and  weather-fending  company  took  vows  on  it- 
self, strict  chivalry  forms,  and  decided  to  be- 
come permanent  “ Knights  Hospitallers  of  our 
dear  Lady  of  Mount  Zion,”  separate  from  the 
former  Knights  Hospitallers,  as  being  entirely 
German  : yet  soon,  as  the  German  Order  of  St. 
Mary,  eclipsing  in  importance  Templars,  Hos-' 
pitallers,  and  every  other  chivalric  order  then 
extant ; no  purpose  of  battle  in  them,  but  much 
strength  for  it ; their  purpose  only  the  helping 
of  German  pilgrims.  To  this  only  they  are 
bound  by  their  vow,  “ gelbiide,”  and  become 
one  of  the  usefullest  of  clubs  in  all  the  Pall 
Mall  of  Europe. 

Finding  pilgrimage  in  Palestine  falling  slack, 
and  more  need  for  them  on  the  homeward  side 
of  the  sea,  their  Hochmeister,  Hermann  of  the 
Salza,  goes  over  to  Venice  in  1210.  There, 
the  titular  bishop  of  still  unconverted  Preussen 
advises  him  of  that  field  of  work  for  his  idle 
knights.  Hermann  thinks  well  of  it : sets  his 
St.  Mary’s  riders  at  Triglaph,  with  the  sword 
in  one  hand  and  a missal  in  the  other. 

Not  your  modern  way  of  effecting  conversion ! 
Too  illiberal,  you  think  ; and  what  would  Mr. 
J.  S.  Mill  say  ? 

But  if  Triglaph  had  been  verily  “ three 
whales’  cubs  combined  by  boiling,”  you  would 
yourself  have  promoted  attack  on  him  for  the 
sake  of  his  oil,  would  not  you  ? The  Teutsch 


232  I HE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


Ritters,  fighting  him  for  charity,  are  they  so 
much  inferior  to  you  ? 

“ They  built,  and  burnt,  innumerable  stock- 
ades for  and  against ; built  wooden  forts  which 
are  now  stone  towns.  They  fought  much  and 
prevalently ; galloped  desperately  to  and  fro, 
ever  on  the  alert.  In  peaceabler  ulterior  times, 
they  fenced  in  the  Nogat  and  the  Weichsel 
with  dams,  whereby  unlimited  quagmire  might 
become  grassy  meadow — as  it  continues  to  this 
day.  Marienburg  (Mary’s  Burg),  with  its  grand 
stone  Schloss  still  visible  and  even  habitable : 
this  was  at  length  their  headquarter.  But  how 
many  Burgs  of  wood  and  stone  they  built,  in 
different  parts ; what  revolts,  surprisals,  furious 
fights  in  woody,  boggy  places  they  had,  no 
man  has  counted. 

“ But  always  some  preaching  by  zealous 
monks,  accompanied  the  chivalrous  fighting. 
And  colonists  came  in  from  Germany ; trick- 
ling in,  or  at  times  streaming.  Victorious  Rit- 
terdom  offers  terms  to  the  beaten  heathen  : 
terms  not  of  tolerant  nature,  but  which  will  be 
punctually  kept  by  Ritterdom.  When  the  flame 
of  revolt  or  general  conspiracy  burnt  up  again 
too  extensively,  high  personages  came  on  cru- 
sade to  them.  Ottocar,  King  of  Bohemia, 
with  his  extensive  far-shining  chivalry,  ‘ con- 
quered Samland  in  a month ; ’ tore  up  the 
Romova  where  Adalbert  had  been  massacred, 
and  burnt  it  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  A 
certain  fortress  was  founded  at  that  time, 


APPENDIX. 


233 


in  Ottocar’s  presence ; and  in  honor  of  him 
they  named  it  King’s  Fortress,  ‘ Konigsberg.’ 
Among  King  Ottocar’s  esquires,  or  subaltern 
junior  officials,  on  this  occasion,  is  one  Rudolf, 
heir  of  a poor  Swiss  lordship  and  gray  hill 
castle,  called  Hapsburg,  rather  in  reduced 
circumstances,  whom  Ottocar  likes  for  his 
prudent,  hardy  ways  ; a stout,  modest,  wise 
young  man,  who  may  chance  to  redeem  Haps- 
burg a little,  if  he  lives. 

“ Conversion,  and  complete  conquest  once 
come,  there  was  a happy  time  for  Prussia  ; 
ploughshare  instead  of  sword  : busy  sea-havens, 
German  towns,  getting  built ; churches  every- 
where rising ; grass  growing,  and  peaceable 
cows,  where  formerly  had  been  quagmire  and 
snakes,  and  for  the  Order  a happy  time.  On 
the  whole,  this  Teutsch  Ritterdom,  for  the  first 
century  and  more,  was  a grand  phenomenon, 
and  flamed  like  a bright  blessed  beacon  through 
the  night  of  things,  in  those  Northern  countries. 
For  above  a century,  we  perceive,  it  was  the 
rallying  place  of  all  brave  men  who  had  a 
career  to  seek  on  terms  other  than  vulgar. 
The  noble  soul,  aiming  beyond  money,  and 
sensible  to  more  than  hunger  in  this  world,  had 
a beacon  burning  (as  we  say),  if  the  night 
chanced  to  overtake  it,  and  the  earth  to  grow 
too  intricate,  as  is  not  uncommon.  Better  than 
the  career  of  stump-oratory,  I should  fancy, 
and  its  Hesperides  apples,  golden,  and  of  gilt 
horse-dung.  Better  than  puddling  away  one’s 
poor  spiritual  gift  of  God  (loan,  not  gift),  such 


234  THE  crown  of  wild  olive. 


as  it  may  be,  in  building  the  lofty  rhyme,  the 
lofty  review  article,  for  a discerning  public  that 
has  sixpence  to  spare  ! Times,  alter  greatly.”  * 

We  must  pause  here  again  for  a moment  to 
think  where  we  are,  and  who  is  with  us.  The 
Teutsch  Ritters  have  been  fighting,  independ- 
ently of  all  states,  for  their  own  hand,  or  St. 
Adalbert’s  ; — partly  for  mere  love  of  fight, 
partly  for  love  of  order,  partly  for  love  of  God. 
Meantime,  other  Riders  have  been  fighting 
wholly  for  what  they  could  get  by  it ; and  other 
persons,  not  Riders,  have  not  been  fighting  at 
all,  but  in  their  own  towns  peacefully  manu- 
facturing and  selling. 

Of  Henry  the  Fowler’s  Marches,  Austria  has 
become  a military  power,  Flanders  a mercantile 
one,  pious  only  in  the  degree  consistent  with 
their  several  occupations.  Prussia  is  now  a 
practical  and  farming  country,  more  Christian 
than  its  longer-converted  neighbors. 

“ Towns  are  built,  Konigsberg  (King  Otto- 
car’s  town),  Thoren  (Thorn,  City  of  the 
Gates),  with  many  others;  so  that  the  wild 
population  and  the  tame  now  lived  tolerably 
together,  under  Gospel  and  Liibeck  law ; and 
all  was  ploughing  and  trading.” 

But  Brandenburg  itself,  what  of  it  ? 

* I would  much  rather  print  these  passages  of  Car- 
lyle in  large  golden  letters  than  small  black  ones ; but 
they  are  only  here  at  all  for  unlucky  people  who  can’t 
read  them  with  the  context. 


APPENDIX. 


235 


The  Ascanien  Markgraves  rule  it  on  the 
whole  prosperously  down  to  1320,  when  their 
line  expires,  and  it  falls  into  the  power  of  Im- 
perial Austria. 

IX. 

1320 — 1415. — Brandenburg  under  the  Aus- 
trians. 

A century — the  fourteenth — of  miserable 
anarchy  and  decline  for  Brandenburg,  its 
Kurfiirsts,  in  deadly  succession,  making  what 
they  can  out  of  it  for  their  own  pockets.  The 
city  itself  and  its  territory  utterly  helpless. 
Read  pp.  180,  181  (129,  130).  “The  towns 
suffered  much,  any  trade  they  might  have  had 
going  to  wreck.  Robber  castles  flourished, 
all  else  decayed,  no  highway  safe.  What  are 
Hamburg  peddlers  made  for  but  to  be 
robbed  ? ” 

X. 

1415 — 1440. — Brandenburg  under  Friedrich  of 
Nuremberg. 

This  is  the  fourth  of  the  men  whom  you  are 
to  remember  as  creators  of  the  Prussian  mon- 
archy, Henry  the  Fowler,  St.  Adalbert,  Albert 
the  Bear,  of  Ascanien,  and  Friedrich  of 
Nuremberg;  (of  Hohenzollern  by  name,  and 


236  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

by  country  of  the  Black  Forest,  north  of  the 
Lake  of  Constance). 

Brandenburg  is  sold  to  him  at  Constance, 
during  the  great  Council,  for  about  ^200,000  of 
our  money,  worth  perhaps  a million  in  that 
day ; still,  with  its  capabilities,  “ dog  cheap.” 
Admitting,  what  no  one  at  the  time  denied,  the 
general  marketableness  of  states  as  private 
property,  this  is  the  one  practical  result,  thinks 
Carlyle  (not  likely  to  think  wrong),  of  that 
oecumenical  deliberation,  four  years  long,  of 
the  “ elixir  of  the  intellect  and  dignity  of 
Europe.  And  that  one  thing  was  not  its 
doing;  but  a pawnbroking  job,  intercalated/5 
putting,  however,  at  last,  Brandenburg  again 
under  the  will  of  one  strong  man.  On  St. 
John's  Day,  1412,  he  first  set  foot  in  his  town, 
“ and  Brandenburg,  under  its  wise  Kurfiirst, 
begins  to  be  cosmic  again.”  The  story  of 
Heavy  Peg,  pages  195-198  (138,  140),  is  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  and  important  passages 
of  the  first  volume ; page  199,  specially  to  our 
purpose,  must  be  given  entire  : — 

“ The  offer  to  be  Kaiser  was  made  him  in 
his  old  days ; but  he  wisely  declined  that  too. 
It  was  in  Brandenburg,  by  what  he  silently 
founded  there,  that  he  did  his  chief  benefit  to 
Germany  and  mankind.  He  understood  the 
noble  art  of  governing  men ; had  in  him  the 
justness,  clearness,  valor,  and  patience  needed 
for  that.  A man  of  sterling  probity,  for  one 
thing.  Which  indeed  is  the  first  requisite  in 


APPENDIX. 


2 37 


said  art : — if  you  will  have  your  laws  obeyed 
without  mutiny,  see  well  that  they  be  pieces 
of  God  Almighty’s  law ; otherwise  all  the 
artillery  in  the  world  will  not  keep  down 
mutiny. 

“ Friedrich  ‘ travelled  much  over  Branden- 
burg ; 9 looking  into  everything  with  his  own 
eyes  ; making,  I can  well  fancy,  innumerable 
crooked  things  straight ; reducing  more  and 
more  that  famishing  dog-kennel  of  a Branden- 
burg into  a fruitful  arable  field.  His  portraits 
represent  a square-headed,  mild-looking,  solid 
gentleman,  with  a certain  twinkle  of  mirth  in 
the  serious  eyes  of  him.  Except  in  those 
Hussite  wars  for  Kaiser  Sigismund  and  the 
Reich,  in  which  no  man  could  prosper,  he  may 
be  defined  as  constantly  prosperous.  To 
Brandenburg  he  was,  very  literally,  the  bless- 
ing of  blessings ; redemption  out  of  death 
into  life.  In  the  ruins  of  that  old  Friesack 
Castle,  battered  down  by  Heavy  Peg,  anti- 
quarian science  (if  it  had  any  eyes)  might  look 
for  the  tap-root  of  the  Prussian  nation,  and  the 
beginning  of  all  that  Brandenburg  has  since 
grown  to  under  the  sun.” 

Which  growth  is  now  traced  by  Carlyle  in 
its  various  budding  and  withering,  under  the 
succession  of  the  twelve  Electors,  of  whom 
Friedrich,  with  his  Heavy  Peg,  is  first,  and 
Friedrich,  first  King  of  Prussia,  grandfather  of 
Friedrich  the  Great,  the  twelfth. 


238  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


XI. 

1415 — 1701. — Brandenburg  under  the  Hohm - 
zollern  Kurfursts. 

Book  III. 


Who  the  Hohenzollerns  were,  and  how  they 
came  to  power  in  Nuremberg,  is  told  in  Chap, 
v.  of  Book  II. 

Their  succession  in  Brandenburg  is  given  in 
brief  at  page  377  (269).  I copy  it,  in  absolute 
barrenness  of  enumeration,  for  our  momen- 
tary convenience,  here  : — 


Friedrich  1st  of  Brandenburg  (6th  of 

Nuremberg) 1412-1440 

Friedrich  II.,  called  “Iron  Teeth ” 1440-1472 

Albert 1472-1486 

1486-1499 
i499'i535 
I53S-I57I 
1571-1598 
1598-1608 
1608-1619 
1619-1640 


Johann  . 

Joachim  I.  . 

Joachim  II.  . 

Johann  George  . 

Joachim  Friedrich  . 

Johann  Sigismund  . 

George  Wilhelm.  . 

Friedrich  Wilhelm  (the  Great  Elec- 
tor)   1640-1688 

Friedrich,  first  King ; crowned  18th 

January  ....  1701 


Of  this  line  of  princes  we  have  to  say  they 
followed  generally  in  their  ancestor’s  steps, 


APPENDIX. 


239 


and  had  success  of  the  like  kind  more  or  less  ; 
Hohenzollerns  all  of  them,  by  character  and 
behavior  as  well  as  by  descent.  No  lack  of 
quiet  energy,  of  thrift,  sound  sense.  There 
was  likewise  solid  fair  play  in  general,  no 
founding  of  yourself  on  ground  that  will  not 
carry,  and  there  was  instant , gentle , but  inexor- 
able crushing  of  mutiny , if  it  showed  itself, 
which,  after  the  Second  Elector,  or  at  most 
the  Third,  it  had  altogether  ceased  to  do. 

This  is  the  general  account  of  them ; of 
special  matters  note  the  following  : — 

II.  Friedrich,  called  “ Iron-teeth/’  from  his 
firmness,  proves  a notable  manager  and  gov- 
ernor. Builds  the  palace  at  Berlin  in  its  first 
form,  and  makes  it  his  chief  residence.  Buys 
Neumark  from  the  fallen  Teutsch  Ritters,  and 
generally  establishes  things  on  securer  footing. 

III.  Albert,  “ a fiery,  tough  old  Gentleman,” 
called  the  Achilles  of  Germany  in  his  day  ; has 
half-a-century  of  fighting  with  his  own  Nurem- 
bergers, with  Bavaria,  France,  Burgundy  and  its 
fiery  Charles,  besides  being  head  constable  to 
the  Kaiser  among  any  disorderly  persons  in  the 
East.  His  skull,  long  shown  on  his  tomb, 
“ marvellous  for  strength  and  with  no  visible 
sutures.” 

IV.  John,  the  orator  of  his  race;  (but  the 
orations  unrecorded).  His  second  son,  Arch- 
bishop of  Maintz,  for  whose  piece  of  memo- 
rable work  see  page  223  (143),  and  read  in  con- 
nection with  that  the  history  of  Markgraf 


240  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


George,  pp.  237 — 241  (152 — 154),  and  the  8th 
chapter  of  the  third  book. 

V.  Joachim  I,  of  little  note  ; thinks  there  has 
been  enough  Reformation,  and  checks  proceed- 
ings in  a dull  stubbornness,  causing  him  at 
least  grave  domestic  difficulties. — Page  271 

(173)- 

VI.  Joachim  II.  Again  active  in  the  Re- 
formation, and  staunch, 

“ though  generally  in  a cautious,  weighty, 
never  in  a rash,  swift  way,  to  the  great  cause 
of  Protestantism  and  to  all  good  causes.  lie 
was  himself  a solemnly  devout  man ; deep, 
awe-stricken  reverence  dwelling  in  his  view  of 
this  universe.  Most  serious,  though  with  a 
jocose  dialect,  commonly  having  a cheerful 
wit  in  speaking  to  men.  Luther’s  books  he 
called  his  Seelenschatz  (soul’s  treasure) ; 
Luther  and  the  Bible  were  his  chief  reading. 
Fond  of  profane  learning,  too,  and  of  the  use- 
ful or  ornamental  arts  ; given  to  music,  and 
‘ would  himself  sing  aloud  ’ when  he  had  a 
melodious  leisure  hour.” 


VII.  Johann  George,  a prudent  thrifty  Herr  ; 
no  mistresses,  no  luxuries  allowed ; at  the  sight 
of  a new-fashioned  coat  he  would  fly  out  on 
an  unhappy  youth  and  pack  him  from  his 
presence.  Very  strict  in  point  of  justice  ; a 
peasant  once  appealing  to  him  in  one  of  his 
inspection  journeys  through  the  country — 


APPENDIX . 


241 


“‘Grant  me  justice,  Durchlaucht,  against  so 
And  so ; I am  your  Highness’s  born  subject.’ 

‘ Thou  shouldst  have  it,  man,  wert  thou  a 
fcorn  Turk  !’  answered  Johann  George.” 

Thus,  generally,  we  find  this  line  of  Electors 
representing  in  Europe  the  Puritan  mind  of 
England  in  a somewhat  duller,  but  less 
dangerous,  form  ; receiving  what  Protestantism 
could  teach  of  honesty  and  common  sense,  but 
not  its  anti-Catholic  fury,  or  its  selfish  spiritual 
anxiety.  Pardon  of  sins  is  not  to  be  had  from 
Tetzel ; neither,  the  Hohenzollern  mind 
advises  with  itself,  from  even  Tetzel’s  master, 
for  either  the  buying  or  the  asking.  On  the 
whole,  we  had  better  commit  as  few  as  possible, 
and  live  just  lives  and  plain  ones. 

“ A conspicuous  thrift,  veracity,  modest 
solidity,  looks  through  the  conduct  of  this 
Herr ; a determined  Protestant  he  too,  as  in- 
deed all  the  following  were  and  are.” 

VIII.  Joachim  Friedrich.  Gets  hold  of 
Prussia,  which  hitherto,  you  observe,  has  always 
been  spoken  of  as  a separate  country  from 
Brandenburg.  March  11,  1605 — “Squeezed 
his  way  into  the  actual  guardianship  of 
Preussen  and  its  imbecile  Duke,  which  was 
his  by  right.” 

For  my  own  part,  I do  not  trouble  myself 
much  about  these  rights,  never  being  able  to 
make  out  any  single  one,  to  begin  with,  except 
the  right  to  keep  everything  and  every  place 

16 


242  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE . 

about  you  in  as  good  order  as  you  can — 
Prussia,  Poland,  or  what  else.  I should  much 
like,  for  instance,  just  now,  to  hear  of  any 
honest  Cornish  gentleman  of  the  old  Drake 
breed  taking  a fancy  to  land  in  Spain,  and 
trying  what  he  could  make  of  his  rights  as  far 
round  Gibraltar  as  he  could  enforce  them.  At 
all  events,  Master  Joachim  has  somehow  got 
hold  of  Prussia ; and  means  to  keep  it. 

IX.  Johann  Sigismund.  Only  notable  for 
our  economical  purposes,  as  getting  the 
“ guardianship  ” of  Prussia  confirmed  to  him. 
The  story  at  page  317  (226),  “ a strong  flame 
of  choler,”  indicates  a new  order  of  things 
among  the  knights  of  Europe — “ princely  eti- 
quettes melting  all  into  smoke.”  Too  literally 
so,  that  being  one  of  the  calamitous  functions 
of  the  plain  lives  we  are  living,  and  of  the  busy 
life  our  country  is  living.  In  the  Duchy  of 
Cleve,  especially,  concerning  which  legal  dis- 
pute begins  in  Sigismund’s  time.  And  it  is 
well  worth  the  lawyers’  trouble,  it  seems. 

“ It  amounted,  perhaps,  to  two  Yorkshires  in 
extent.  A naturally  opulent  country  of  fertile 
meadows,  shipping  capabilities,  metalliferous 
hills,  and  at  this  time,  in  consequence  of  the 
Dutch-Spanish  war,  and  the  multitude  of  Prot- 
estant refugees,  it  was  getting  filled  with  in- 
genious industries,  and  rising  to  be  what  it 
still  is,  the  busiest  quarter  of  Germany.  A 
country  lowing  with  kine ; the  hum  of  the  flax- 
spindle  heard  in  its  cottages  in  those  old  days 


APPENDIX. 


243 


— c much  of  the  linen  called  Hollands  is  made 
in  Jiilich,  and  only  bleached,  stamped,  and  sold 
by  the  Dutch,’  says  Biisching.  A country  in 
our  days  which  is  shrouded  at  short  intervals 
with  the  due  canopy  of  coal-smoke,  and  loud 
with  sounds  of  the  anvil  and  the  loom.” 

The  lawyers  took  two  hundred  and  six  years  to 
settle  the  question  concerning  this  Duchy,  and 
the  thing  Johann  Sigismund  had  claimed 
legally  in  1609  was  actually  handed  over  to 
Johann  Sigismund’s  descendant  in  the  seventh 
generation.  “ These  litigated  duchies  are  now 
the  Prussian  provinces,  Jiilich,  Berg,  Cleve, 
and  the  nucleus  of  Prussia’s  possessions  in  the 
Rhine  country.” 

X.  George  Wilhelm.  Read  pp.  325  to  327 
(231,  333)  on  this  Elector  and  German  Prot- 
estantism, now  fallen  old,  and  somewhat  too 
little  dangerous.  But  George  Wilhelm  is  the 
only  weak  prince  of  all  the  twelve.  For  another 
example  how  the  heart  and  life  of  a country 
depend  upon  its  prince,  not  on  its  council,  read 
this,  Gustavus  Adolphus,  demanding  the 
cession  of  Spandau  and  Kustrin  : 

“ Which  cession  Kiirfurst  George  Wilhelm, 
though  giving  all  his  prayers  to  the  good  cause, 
could  by  no  means  grant.  Gustav  had  to  in- 
sist, with  more  and  more  emphasis,  advancing 
at  last  with  military  menace  upon  Berlin  itself. 
He  was  met  by  George  Wilhelm  and  his  Coun- 
cil, 6 in  the  woods  of  Copenick,’  short  way  to  the 


244  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


east  of  that  city  ; there  George  Wilhelm  and  his 
Council  wandered  about,  sending  messages, 
hopelessly  consulting,  saying  among  each  other, 
‘ Que  faire  ? ils  ont  des  canons/  For  many 
hours  so,  round  the  inflexible  Gustav,  who  was 
there  like  a fixed  milestone,  and  to  all  ques* 
tions  and  comers  had  only  one  answer.” 

On  our  special  question  of  war  and  its  conse- 
quences, read  this  of  the  Thirty  Years’  one : 

“ But  on  the  whole,  the  grand  weapon  in  it, 
and  towards  the  latter  times  the  exclusive  one, 
was  hunger.  The  opposing  armies  tried  to 
starve  one  another ; at  lowest,  tried  each  not  to 
starve.  Each  trying  to  eat  the  country  or,  at 
any  rate,  to  leave  nothing  eatable  in  it ; what 
that  will  mean  for  the  country  we  may  con- 
sider. As  the  armies  too  frequently,  and  the 
Kaiser’s  armies  habitually,  lived  without  com- 
missariat, often  enough  without  pay,  all  hor- 
rors of  war  and  of  being  a seat  of  war,  that 
have  been  since  heard  of,  are  poor  to  those 
then  practised,  the  detail  of  which  is  still  horri- 
ble to  read.  Germany,  in  all  eatable  quarters 
of  it,  had  to  undergo  the  process  ; tortured,  torn 
to  pieces,  wrecked,  and  brayed  as  in  mortar, 
under  the  iron  mace  of  war.  Brandenburg 
saw  its  towns  seized  and  sacked,  its  country 
populations  driven  to  despair  by  the  one  party 
and  the  other.  Three  times — first  in  the 
Wallenstein-Mecklenburg  times,  while  fire  and 
sword  were  the  weapons,  and  again,  twice  over, 


APPENDIX. 


245 


in  the  ultimate  stages  of  the  struggle,  when 
starvation  had  become  the  method — Branden- 
burg fell  to  be  the  principal  theatre  of  conflict, 
where  all  forms'  of  the  dismal  were  at  their 
height.  In  1638,  three  years  after  that  precious 
i Peace  of  Pra g,’  . . . the  ravages  of  the 
starving  Gallas  and  his  Imperialists  excelled 
all  precedent,  . . . men  ate  human  flesh,  nay, 
human  creatures  ate  their  own  children.’  ‘ Que 
faire  ? ils  ont  des  canons  1 ’ ” 

“ We  have  now  arrived  at  the  lowest  nadir 
point  ” (says  Carlyle)  “ of  the  history  of 
Brandenburg  under  the  Hohenzollerns.”  1$ 
this  then  all  that  Heavy  Peg  and  our  nin< 
Kiirfursts  have  done  for  us  ? 

Carlyle  does  not  mean  that : but  even  he, 
greatest  of  historians  since  Tacitus,  is  not 
enough  careful  to  mark  for  us  the  growth  of 
national  character,  as  distinct  from  the  pros- 
perity of  dynasties. 

A republican  historian  would  think  of  this 
development  only,  and  suppose  it  to  be  possi- 
ble without  any  dynasties. 

Which  is  indeed  in  a measure  so,  and  the 
work  now  chiefly  needed  in  moral  philosophy, 
as  well  as  history,  is  an  analysis  of  the  constant 
and  prevalent,  yet  unthought  of,  influences, 
which,  without  any  external  help  from  kings, 
and  in  a silent  and  entirely  necessary  manner, 
form,  in  Sweden,  in  Bavaria,  in  the  Tyrol,  in 
the  Scottish  border,  and  on  the  French  sea- 
coast,  races  of  noble  peasants ; pacific,  poetic, 


246  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

heroic,  Christian-hearted  in  the  deepest  sense, 
who  may  indeed  perish  by  sword  or  famine  in 
any  cruel  thirty  years  ’ war,  or  ignoble  thirty 
years’  peace,  and  yet  leave  such  strength  to 
their  children  that  the  country,  apparently 
ravaged  into  hopeless  ruin,  revives,  under  any 
prudent  king,  as  the  cultivated  fields  do  under 
the  spring  rain.  How  the  rock  to  which  no 
seed  can  cling,  and  which  no  rain  can  soften, 
is  subdued  into  the  good  ground  which  can 
bring  forth  its  hundredfold,  we  forget  to  watch, 
while  we  follow  the  footsteps  of  the  sower,  or 
mourn  the  catastrophes  of  storm.  All  this 
while,  the  Prussian  earth, — the  Prussian  soul, 
— has  been  thus  dealt  upon  by  successive  fate  ; 
and  now,  though  laid,  as  it  seems,  utterly 
desolate,  it  can  be  revived  by  a few  years  of 
wisdom  and  of  peace. 

Vol.  I.  Book  III.  Chap,  xviii. — The  Great 
Elector,  Friedrich  Wilhelm.  Eleventh  of  the 
dynasty : — 

“ There  hardly  ever  came  to  sovereign  power 
a young  man  of  twenty  under  more  distressing, 
hopeless-looking  circumstances.  Political  sig- 
nificance Brandenburg  had  none  ; a mere  Prot- 
estant appendage,  dragged  about  by  a Papist 
Kaiser,  his  father’s  Prime  Minister,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  in  the  interest  of  his  enemies  ; not 
Brandenburg’s  servant,  but  Austria’s.  The 
very  commandants  of  his  fortresses,  Com- 
mandant of  Spandau  more  especially,  refused 
to  obey  Friedrich  Wilhelm  on  his  accession  \ 


APPENDIX . 247 

* were  bound  to  obey  the  Kaiser  in  the  first 
place. ’ 

“ For  twenty  years  past  Brandenburg  had 
been  scoured  by  hostile  armies,  which,  espe- 
cially the  Kaiser’s  part  of  which,  committed  out- 
rages new  in  human  history.  In  a year  or  two 
hence,  Brandenburg  became  again  the  theatre 
of  business.  Austrian  Gallas  advancing  thither 
again  (1644)  with  intent  ‘to  shut  up  Torsten- 
son  and  his  Swedes  in  Jutland.’  Gallas  could 
by  no  means  do  what  he  intended  ; on  the 
contrary,  he  had  to  run  from  Torstenson — what 
feet  could  do  ; was  hunted,  he  and  his  Merode 
Bruder  (beautiful  inventors  of  the  ‘maraud- 
ing’ art),  till  they  pretty  much  all  died 
(crepirten)  says  Kohler.  No  great  loss  to 
society,  the  death  of  these  artists,  but  we  can 
fancy  what  their  life,  and  especially  what  the 
process  of  their  dying,  may  have  cost  poor 
Brandenburg  again ! 

“ Friedrich  Wilhelm’s  aim,  in  this  as  in  other 
emergencies,  was  sun-clear  to  himself,  but  for 
most  part  dim  to  everybody  else.  He  had  to 
walk  very  warily,  Sweden  on  one  hand  of 
him,  suspicious  Kaiser  on  the  other  : he  had 
to  wear  semblances,  to  be  ready  with  evasive 
words,  and  advance  noiselessly  by  many  cir- 
cuits. More  delicate  operation  could  not  be 
imagined.  But  advance  he  did  ; advance  and 
arrive.  With  extraordinary  talent,  diligence, 
and  felicity  the  young  man  wound  himself  out 
of  this  first  fatal  position,  got  those  foreign 
armies  pushed  out  of  his  country,  and  kept 


248  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

them  out.  His  first  concern  had  been  to  find 
some  vestige  of  revenue,  to  put  that  upon  a 
clear  footing,  and  by  loans  or  otherwise  to 
scrape  a little  ready-money  together.  On  the 
strength  of  which  a small  body  of  soldiers  could 
be  collected  about  him , and  drilled  into  real  ability 
to  fight  and  obey . This  as  a basis  : on  this 
followed  all  manner  of  things,  freedom  from 
Swedish-Austrian  invasions,  as  the  first  thing. 
He  was  himself,  as  appeared  by-and-by,  a 
fighter  of  the  first  quality,  when  it  came  to  that , 
but  never  was  willing  to  fight  if  he  could  help 
it.  Preferred  rather  to  shift,  manoeuvre,  and 
negotiate,  which  he  did  in  most  vigilant,  adroit, 
and  masterly  manner.  But  by  degrees  he  had 
grown  to  have,  and  could  maintain  it,  an  army 
of  24,000  men,  among  the  best  troops  then 
in  being.” 

To  wear  semblances,  to  be  ready  with  eva- 
sive words,  how  is  this,  Mr.  Carlyle  ? thinks 
perhaps,  the  rightly  thoughtful  reader. 

Yes,  such  things  have  to  be.  There  are  lies 
and  lies,  and  there  are  truths  and  truths. 
Ulysses  cannot  ride  on  the  ram’s  back,  like 
Phryxus  ; but  must  ride  under  his  belly.  Read 
also  this,  presently  following  : 

“ Shortly  after  which,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  who 
had  shone  much  in  the  battle  of  Warsaw,  into 
which  he  was  dragged  against  his  will,  changed 
sides.  An  inconsistent,  treacherous  man  ? 
Perhaps  not,  O reader  1 perhaps  a man  ad  vane- 


APPENDIX . 


249 


in g c in  circuits/  the  only  way  he  has  ; spirally, 
face  now  to  east,  now  to  west,  with  his  own 
reasonable  private  aim  sun-clear  to  him  all  the 
while  ? *' 

The  battle  of  Warsaw,  three  days  long,  fought 
with  Gustavus,  the  grandfather  of  Charles  XII., 
against  the  Poles,  virtually  ends  the  Polish 
power : 

“ Old  Johann  Casimir,  not  long  after  that 
peace  of  Oliva,  getting  tired  of  his  unruly  Pol- 
ish chivalry  and  their  ways,  abdicated — retired 
to  Paris,  and  ‘lived  much  with  Ninon  de 
l’Enclos  and  her  circle/  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
He  used  to  complain  of  his  Polish  chivalry,  that 
there  was  no  solidity  in  them  ; nothing  but  out- 
side glitter,  with  tumult  and  anarchic  noise ; 
fatal  want  of  one  essential  talent,  the  talent  of 
obeying;  and  has  been  heard  to  prophesy  that 
a glorious  Republic,  persisting  in  such  courses 
would  arrive  at  results  which  would  surprise  it. 

“ Onward  from  this  time,  Friedrich  Wilhelm 
figures  in  the  world  ; public  men  watching  his 
procedure  ; kings  anxious  to  secure  him — Dutch 
print-sellers  sticking  up  his  portraits  for  a hero- 
worshipping  public.  Fighting  hero,  had  the 
public  known  it,  was  not  his  essential  charac- 
ter, though  he  had  to  fight  a great  deal.  He 
was  essentially  an  industrial  man;  great  in 
organizing,  regulating,  in  constraining  chaotic 
heaps  to  become  cosmic  for  him.  He  drains 
bogs,  settles  colonies  in  the  waste  places  of  his 
dominions,  cuts  canals ; unweariedly  encour* 


250  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 

ages  trade  and  work.  The  Friedrich  Wilhelm’s 
Canal,  which  still  carries  tonnage  from  the  Oder 
to  the  Spree,  is  a monument  of  his  zeal  in  this 
way  ; creditable  with  the  means  he  had.  To 
the  poor  French  Protestants  in  the  Edict-of- 
Nantes  affair,  he  was  like  an  express  benefit  of 
Heaven  ; one  helper  appointed  to  whom  the 
help  itself  was  profitable.  He  munificently  wel- 
comed them  to  Brandenburg ; showed  really  a 
noble  piety  and  human  pity,  as  well  as  judg- 
ment ; nor  did  Brandenburg  and  he  want  their 
reward.  Some  20,000  nimble  French  souls, 
evidently  of  the  best  French  quality,  found  a 
home  there  ; made  ‘ waste  sands  about  Berlin 
into  potherb  gardens  ; ’ and  in  spiritual  Bran- 
denburg, too,  did  something  of  horticulture 
which  is  still  noticeable.” 

Now  read  carefully  the  description  of  the 
man,  p.  352  (224-5);  the  story  of  the  battle' of 
Fehrbellin,  “ the  Marathon  of  Brandenburg,” 
p.  354  (225)  ; and  of  the  winter  campaign  of 
1:679,  P*  35^  (227),  beginning  with  its  week’s 
marches  at  sixty  miles  a day;  his  wife,  as 
always,  being  with  him  : 

“ Louisa,  honest  and  loving  Dutch  girl,  aunt 
to  our  William  of  Orange,  who  trimmed  up  her 
own  ‘ Orange-burg  ’ (country-house),  twenty 
miles  north  of  Berlin,  into  a little  jewel  of  the 
Dutch  type,  potherb  gardens,  training-schools 
for  young  girls,  and  the  like,  a favorite  abode 
of  hers  when  she  was  at  liberty  for  recreation. 
But  her  life  was  busy  and  earnest ; she  was 


APPENDIX.  251 

helpmate,  not  in  name  only,  to  an  ever  busy 
man.  They  were  married  young  ; a marriage 
of  love  withal.  Young  Friedrich  Wilhelm’s 
courtship;  wedding  in  Holland;  the  honest, 
trustful  walk  and  conversation  of  the  two  sov- 
ereign spouses,  their  journeyings  together, 
their  mutual  hopes,  fears,  and  manifold  vicissi- 
tudes, till  death,  with  stern  beauty,  shut  it  in  ; 
all  is  human,  true,  and  wholesome  in  it,  inter- 
esting to  look  upon,  and  rare  among  sovereign 
persons.’’ 

Louisa  died  in  1667,  twenty-one  years  before 
her  husband,  who  married  again — (little  to  his 
contentment) — died  in  1688  ; and  Louisa’s 
second  son,  Friedrich,  ten  years  old  at  his 
mother’s  death,  and  now  therefore  thirty-one, 
succeeds,  becoming  afterwards  Friedrich  I.  of 
Prussia. 

And  here  we  pause  on  two  great  questions. 
Prussia  is  assuredly  at  this  point  a happier  and 
better  country  than  it  was  when  inhabited  by 
Wends.  But  is  Friedrich  I.  a happier  and 
better  man  than  H.nry  the  Fowler?  Have 
all  these  kings  thus  improved  their  country, 
but  never  themselves  ? Is  this  somewhat  ex- 
pensive and  ambitious  Herr,  Friedrich  I.,  but- 
toned in  diamonds,  indeed  the  best  that  Prot- 
estantism can  produce,  as  against  Fowlers, 
Bears,  and  Red  Beards  ? Much  more,  Fried- 
rich Wilhelm,  orthodox  on  predestination  ; 
most  of  all,  his  less  orthodox  son  ; — have  we, 
in  these,  the  highest  results  which  Dr.  Martin 


252  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE. 


Luther  can  produce  for  the  present,  in  the  first 
circles  of  society  ? And  if  not,  how  is  it  that 
the  country,  having  gained  so  much  in  intelli- 
gence and  strength,  lies  more  passively  in  their 
power  than  the  baser  country  did  under  that 
of  nobler  men  ? 

These,  and  collateral  questions,  I mean  to 
work  out  as  I can,  with  Carlyle’s  good  help  ; 
— but  must  pause  for  this  time  ; in  doubt,  as 
heretofore.  Only  of  this  one  thing  I doubt 
not,  that  the  name  of  all  great  kings,  set  over 
Christian  nations,  must  at  last  be,  in  fulfilment, 
the  hereditary  one  of  these  German  princes* 
“ Rich  in  Peace ; ” and  that  their  coronation 
will  be  with  Wild  olive,  not  with  gold. 


I 


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I 


